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TestAdoption.sol
pragma solidity ^0.4.17;
import "truffle/Assert.sol";
import "truffle/DeployedAddresses.sol";
import "../contracts/Adoption.sol";
contract TestAdoption {
Adoption adoption = Adoption(DeployedAddresses.Adoption());
// Testing the adopt() function
function testUserCanAdoptPet() public {
uint returnedId = adoption.adopt(8);
uint expected = 8;
Assert.equal(returnedId, expected, "Adoption of pet ID 8 should be recorded.");
}
// Testing retrieval of a single pet's owner
function testGetAdopterAddressByPetId() public {
// Expected owner is this contract
address expected = this;
address adopter = adoption.adopters(8);
Assert.equal(adopter, expected, "Owner of pet ID 8 should be recorded.");
}
// Testing retrieval of all pet owners
function testGetAdopterAddressByPetIdInArray() public {
// Expected owner is this contract
address expected = this;
// Store adopters in memory rather than contract's storage
address[16] memory adopters = adoption.getAdopters();
Assert.equal(adopters[8], expected, "Owner of pet ID 8 should be recorded.");
}
Towards a reading list
My Suggestions, Not sure if they will get published so here they are.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180215150511/https://medium.com/@aldursys
#ConquestofDough
|
This Dialogue between Bastiat and proudhon remains for me one of the defining discussions of Monetary Theory , even up to the present revival of the subject. The Debate is noteable as it tackles not only the question of FIAT money but the Question of FIAT Money issued as Debt at Interest. Proudhon made an important point which Bastiat simply would not acknowledge. Proudhons point is amply described by Bernard Leitaers parable of the 11th Round and is also very ably dveloped in the Work of Helmuth Kreutz in the money syndrome. I discuss These questions in depth in this dialogue with CLive Lord a Joint Founder of the Ecology (later Green Party ) in England and Wales. letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/08/neo-liberalism-billy-no-mates-or-just.html http://praxeology.net/FB-PJP-DOI.htm#contents 
|
The Future of Money by Bernard Lietaer by user909 on Scribd
Where Does Money Come From? by monetary-policy-redux on Scribd
How Much honesty can there be in the world.
Usury Hell's fuel, mans oppressor.
Dear Reader,
We meet our Economy in its repose,
we see its citizens and see their polity.
One community under usury,
a life under the liberty of the yoke.
A country Estate.
Around a fireside after a day of work and sport,
a father and two sons talk and reflect.
A loved first Son speaks.
''Tell me this wise father how much money is there in
the world. Tell me where it comes from and where it goes to die?''
''Son I can not answer your questions, for truly I do
not believe that any man has the answers. Men have pursued money and
in the pursuit lost sight of the prey, for it seems that one mans
pursuit seems frustrated in the victory and another’s object of
pursuit, is only real during the chase?''
''Father I am your second son. I also wonder as my
elder brother does, what is the meaning of money.
Should I lay suit for it and pay its high price, when
we have all that we want and need here on your estates?''
''Dear second Son we have our life and family here
and we have the extra hands and mouths that all help to feed
ourselves and each other. In these treasures we have no need of
money. Others have been divorced from their estates and live in
cities this is where we send our surpluses. ''
'' Our Neighbours also help to feed the cities the
king asks us that we accept tokens from the citizens in return. Our
tokens buy the favours of the king and pay the dues he calls taxes.
In this we may as well act willingly, as in truth we have no
choice.''
The Bakers Kitchen Table.
Around a fireside an artisan baker sits with his two
daughters after a long day.
1st Daughter. ''Tell me this wise Father.
How much money is there in the world and how do customers
who buy our Bread get their money. What of citizens
without a token for a loaf ?''
Father Baker . ''The money we are paid is a token
from the Government treasury with Authority from the king. These are
the same tokens with which we buy our flour from the Estates and our
firewood for the ovens.''
2nd Daughter . ''Father this Bakery has
been with the family for generations how would a new Oven and a new
Shop be possible for the Orphaned Son of the bakery that burnt in the
other village, destroying the family and the Shop . Somehow the Young
boy survived, now he starts from nothing,how can he hope to provide
his needs in the future?''
Father Baker. ''That poor boy will be alone with
nothing in the world , a sad case and a story told a thousand times.
No one to teach his trade to him and no family business left to carry
on, no plot of land from which to raise sustenance and a surplus to
trade.''
In the Soldiers House.
A soldier sits alone he is of high rank and of proud
deportment he is served by his batman. Both bachelors and both
veterans of many campaigns.The soldier has returned from the palace
where he has received another decoration the Medal and the prize are
being admired by the Batman.
Batman. ´´General, the king is very grateful for
our campaign abroad this past year, a medal of solid gold encrusted
with valuable jewels and many tokens in the prize. Enough to buy all
the bread in all the bakeries in the kingdom.''
General. '' Yes the King is pleased his campaigns re
furnish the treasury, to repay the usurers his international debts
and interest.''
In the Bankers House.
The Banker sits in luxury footmen in attendance and
Wife and mother seated in equal pomp and finery. Business is being
discussed...
Wife, ''Tell me dear, didn't the king look un-well at
the ceremony this afternoon ?''
Mother. ''He always was a nervous boy. When your
Father and I used attend the Old Kings ceremonies, the Young prince
as he was then, never seemed as right.''
Wife. ''Mother in Law when you and father in law knew
the old king and we were not as rich as we are now. Now my husband
has prospered as the new kings ambitions have overstretched his purse
and I wondered if my Banker Husband had such concerns.''
Banker. ''My Father did much service to the old king,
the new king does much service for us now in return''.
Wife. ''Tell me my banker husband where did your
father and his fathers father, find the wit to have the king grant
you privilege to create the tokens, how many of them do you have
where were they found?''
Banker. ''Its a long story, let us take our leisure
in the drawing room, that I might Smoke and have a brandy. My great
Great Grandfather Sailed away to Xanadhu the year was 1249 and the
Captain on board ship ship was Marco Polo...''
''We lived in venice when Marco Polo returned
He told of Kubla khans riches.
Khans riches flowed from a strange Alchemy,
Money from Trees, Bark from Mulberry´s.
Denominated and sizes, under seal of the Khan.
Fein deafness to the khans bark on pain of death!
They serve as good as gold, a fraction of the weight.
All foreign merchants sell to khans monopoly,
the merchants trade with paper in the kingdom''
Such power as this with a twist of usury,
we innovate Marco Polos discovery.
Creating the money but not the means to meet the
usury
all wealth guaranteed to flow back to the issuer.
Money newly grown on trees, with usury sportingly
absent.
Surely a creature who´s Bark is not worse than its
bite?
kings now borrowed for rivals to smite.
Bankers became emperors. Usury were the real
fangs.´´
In
the priests House.
The priest sits at high table with the other clergy
of the court.
Deacon, to the priest. '' Holy Father the King seemed
distracted today, the General seemed well rewarded from the latest
campaign, how though do we reconcile the kings distraction with the
claimed success?''
Parish Priest. ''Yes holy father an orphaned child in
my parish will be without hopes of starting afresh without usurious
debt. How are the people to bear the costs , the bounties of their
labours are ever increasing and yet for want of money there is no
traffic in the market square. Yet people are cold and hungry in the
workhouses.
The Holy Father . ''The King is seduced ! my office
is no longer to hear confessions and give guidance. But we are grew
rich in the indulgences we must proffer on our monarch and his aide
the banker.''
''For usury makes a gain out of money itself.
Not used merely for exchange but increasing at
interest.
A price paid for nothing exchanged for something.
The price of the receipt eats the value of the thing
exchanged.''
In
the Courtroom. A usurer demands his deserts.
When shylock petitions the Duke
can he exact a pound of flesh and spill no blood.
The Judge must honour the contract,
how many others does the forfeiture doom?
Neither brassy bosoms, rough hearts of flint
nor stubborn Turks and tartars feel obliged
to temper the harshness of usury or forfeiture, when
the price can not be met.
The Quality of mercy is most definitely strained.
It flattens crops like hail.
Truly only the usurer is twice blessed
and the throned monarch is unthroned.
Usury the usurers crown of gold, our crown remains of
thorns.
New suitors of title ´Masters of the Universe´.
Not Belmont's fair Portia sought.
Porches and financial instruments of many more horse
power,
torque of Twisted vigour.
No longer metaphors of Gold for gaining mans desire,
Or of Silver and its just deserts.
Always Lead and usurious alchemy,
hearts now made of stone.
failed suit of Morocco,
return and count revenues from the Sookes.
Failed suit of Aragon,
beware robbers from Flanders with heavy dennier
stockinged masques.
Seek inside your own Bossanio,
rejecting usury´s gold, hard food of Midas.
Tween Man and man no usury.
Plain lead and recognise moneys deceit.
As Portias counterfeit, redeemed in marriage.
So too should all value tokens declare the
facsimile of exchange they truly be.
Money a true handshake in honour alone.
The
courtiers of the Exchequer address the king;
We
economists beholden as we are to the princes of usury and as the
false prophets of usury.
We fit
the horse foot to the shoe that suits us best. It matters not that
the horse becomes lame and less furlongs are ploughed. As we deny the
poison in our own usurious medium. We also deny that what ills our
patient, could be from any panacea concocted in our own alchemists
crucible.
Our unit
of account, that is to say this store of value.
Not to
leave unsaid, this medium of exchange.
Our
scarlet pimpernel which no one quite pins down.
We say;
''we give you something , always the same
fungible
with each the other. The one whole. Held in safe keeping, returned.
What we call these claims or, definitions of claims. These bundles of
demands, is money.
Insinuated
into civil intercourse,
ubiquitous
in the machinery of community,
deployed
as a lever and pulley in affairs of state.
A measure
of nothing, conjured to divine what's important.
Counsel for the people charge usury of its crimes.
This baron
abstract that claims fruit.
This heavy
invisible burden,
a yoke.
Fashioned in language,
felt but
never seen.
inflicting
scars as deep as any lash,
claiming
lives as real as any canon.
This
nightmare device of imagination.
Who are
the slayers of this mythical dragon?
Coleridge
saw beauty in nature where sweet amaranths bloom. And Shakespeare
compared his summers day.
What of
this hamlets ghost of a spectre?
something
is rotten in the danegeld,
many more
promises are written than can be kept.
So much
nectar strained from thin broth,
which
bargains can be made?
When the
music stops and the dancers
sit down.
Chairs are our metaphor for the real.
Always too
few.
Rascals
become clothed in robes
and
honesty is reduced to rags.
Elisabeth
lease had a purchase on truth.
''When
people starve how can overproduction stand charged. It is money
promises, kept short in supply that causes starvation. The
consumption in the lungs of the community, is the usurers confection.
A
counterfeit Nobel laureate, theres an irony.
Denies
that in money there can be a place that gertrude stein called there,
home once but no longer there , there in Oakland. A precursor to some
sub prime heritage.
A speaker
of truth to power could follow Pauli ´Das ist nicht nur nicht
richtig, es is nicht einmal falsh!
Not even
wrong, not even there.
All
counterfeit, yet to counterfeit the counterfeit? a crime.
What of
the shepherd of this unruly nothing,
where will
they pen and fence this pack of wolves.
Will they
dress this pack of cards in sheep’s clothing.
Limit the
herd a need for Golden standards.
Prudence
of sound Money and even sounder usury.
Fix the
price and patronise those who will honour the thievery. A mechanism
to harmonise silent ballot boxes.
A
gentlemen from belgium would complement his single currency. Unruled
and unruly sets a course for austerity on a continent many times at
war. A fight of 11 rounds.
Spread
like a cancer through the development of continents, enabling the
killing called wars. That increase the debt and centralise the money
power.
Quiggly
shewed the tragedy, little hope it seemed,
blind
faith in capitalisms harlot. That babylonian whore.
At first a
mere money trick for ragged trousered philanthropy. With usury, take
away whats not even yet been paid. Ruskin would see wealth as that
which is valuable in the hands of the valiant. Real goods sustain and
wealth succours. Usurious money is but an unmade claim and worse. No
banker has earned that newly minted note that hangs discordant in the
air, as apt to rob as to pay.
How
obscure this obscurant cult of mammon.
What smoke
screened hall of mirrors.
How obese
and gluttonous the leviathan of usury.
Austerity
for the likes of you and I.
More
banqueting and evacuated vomit spews from the sceptred top table.
Corrupt in patronage and jealousy of power. Overstuffed with greed
and thirsty for more.
How mean
the jealousy of greed grows.
As more
wants more and demands all.
The truly
poor are those who desire much,
oppressive
wealth no longer is, it only has.
Usury
consumes the usurer, no self just an exponential nothing. Growing
ever more grotesque in a shadow of what never was and never could be.
A doom
laden ring of the nibelungs slained by teutonic nobles and routed by
heroic Norsemen.
The paper
money shrouds the rock of prometheus and
still he
forgets in whose promises the usurers truck.
A
Semiotic Turn Wenzels genuinely fake.
A language
of abstract form commemorates brotherhood.
Van
Meegrans supper at Emmaus implies Vermeer’s intention for experts
to divine. A counterfeit of that which never had been, claimed as
real and must be from the brush of the master. A looting tyranny
coveting the genuine fakery like so much gold pulled from the mouths
of corpses. Like so many rabbits out of so many hats and the goldfish
does not know the water it swims in until the surface is broken.
The beauty
of dying lilies, the artist petrifies the fleeting moment and time is
solidified.A promise solidified in time measured in life and non
existence. Celebrate Les miserables of L'Argent . Hugo, Zola and
Proudhon scream.
A promise
wrapped up in a lie claiming existence where no air remains to
breathe or, food to sustain. Asking everything for giving nothing. A
mountebank by nature, a swindle made official by the state. To
enslave the masses and keep them in want.
Concluding prayer.
A central
lack of fibre. Either moral or physical around which myths of debt
are spun. As spiders spin webs and weavers warp clothe. Spartan
Ephors of prudence pass judgement on all and stand above and astride
the law. Dispensing injustice and taking clothes off the backs of The
freezing and food out of the mouths of the hungry. Passing judgement
on those who perform real work, asking always for more and demanding
to pay less.
So draw
the bow of truth with intentness in the eye,
Seek out
the irreducible posits, the epistemological gods of homer. If there
be one free miracle let the ephors explain the rest. What is this
power of usury? Where did this power come from ? Who is it exercised
for and to whom do you ephors of usury answer to ? And now let me
ask. How do we take this power away? Only then we shall see good
faith and brotherhood restored to the commons.
©RogerG
Lewis 2016
Notes with links to sources.
How Much Money is
there in the world.
A country Estate.
Around a fireside after a
day of work and sport a father and two sons talk and reflect.
Ist Son . ''Tell me this
wise father how much money is there in the world
Tell me where it comes
from and where it goes to die.''
''Son I can not answer
your questions for truly I do not believe that any man has the
answers
Men have pursued money and
in the pursuit lost sight of the prey for it seems that one mans
pursuit seems frustrated in the victroy and anothers object of
pursuit is only real during the chase?''
''Father I am your second
son I also wonder as my elder brother does what is the meaning of
money
should I lay suit for it
and pay its high price when we have all that we want and need here on
your estates.''
´´''Dear second Son we
have our life and family here and we have the extra hands and mouths
that all help to feed ourselves and each other in these treasures we
have no need of money. Others have been divorced from their estates
and live in cities this is where we send our surpluses. Our
Neighbours also help to feed the cities the king asks us that we
accept tokens from the citizens in return our tokens buy the favours
of the king and pay the dues he calls taxes in this we mau as well
act willingly as in truth we have no choice.''
The Bakers Kitchen
Table.
Around a frieside an
artisan baker sits with his two daughters after a long day.
1st Daughter,
'Tell me this wise Father how much money is there in the world,and
how do customers
who buy our Bread get
their money. What of citizens without a token for a loaf.
Father Baker . The money
we are paid is a token from the Government treasury with Authority
from the king these are the same tokens with which we buy our flour
from the Estates and our firewood for the ovens.
2nd Daughter .
Father this Bakery has been with the family for generations how would
a new Oven and a new Shop be possible for the Orphaned Son of the
bakery that burnt in the other village destroying the family and the
Shop . Somehow the Young boy survived now he starts from nothing how
can he hope to provide his needs in the future.
Father Baker. That poor
boy will be alone with nothing in the world , a sad case and a story
told a thousand times. No one to teach his trade to him and no family
business left to carry on, no plot of land from which to raise a
sustenance and a surplus to trade.
In the Soldiers
House.
A soldier sits alone he is
of high rank and of proud deportment he is served by his batman, both
bachelors and both veterans of many campaigns.The soldier has
returned from the palace where he has received another decoration the
Medal and the prize are being admired by the Batman
Batman. ´´General the
king is very grateful for our campaign abroad this past year, a medal
of solid gold encrusted with valuable jewells and many tokens in the
prize enough to buy all the bread in all the bakeries in the kingdom.
General. Yes the King is
pleased his campaigns re furnish the treasury for his international
debts and interest.
In the Bankers
House.
The Banker sits in luxury
footmen in attendence and Wife and mother seated in equal pomp and
finery, Business is being discussed.
Wife, Tell me dear didn´t
the king look un well at the ceremony this afternoon ?
Mother. He always was a
nervous boy when your Father and I used attend the Old Kings
ceremonies the Young prince as he was then never seemed as he right
Wife. Mother in Law when
you and father in law knew the old king we were not as rich as we
are now, My Husband has prospered as the new kings ambitions have
overstretched his purse and I wondered if my Banker Husband had such
concerns.
Banker. My Father did much
service to the old king the new king does much service for us now in
return.
Wife. Tell me my banker
husband where did your father and his fathers father find the wit to
have the king grant you privelidge to create the tokens, how many of
them do you have where were they found.
Banker. Its a long story
let us take our leisuure in the drawing room, that I might Smoke and
have a brandy, My great Great Grandfather Sailed away to Xanadhu the
year was 1249 and the Captain on board ship ship was Marco Polo.
''Now that I have told you in detail of the splendour
of this City of the Emperor's, I shall proceed to tell you of the
Mint which he hath in the same city, in the which he hath his money
coined and struck, as I shall relate to you. And in doing so I shall
make manifest to you how it is that the Great Lord may well be able
to accomplish even much more than I have told you, or am going to
tell you, in this Book. For, tell it how I might, you never would be
satisfied that I was keeping within truth and reason!
The Emperor's Mint then is in this same City of
Cambaluc, and the way it is wrought is such that you might say he
hath the Secret of Alchemy in perfection, and you would be right! For
he makes his money after this fashion.
He makes them take of the bark of a certain tree, in
fact of the Mulberry Tree, the leaves of which are the food of the
silkworms,--these trees being so numerous that whole districts are
full of them. What they take is a certain fine white bast or skin
which lies between the wood of the tree and the thick outer bark, and
this they make into something resembling sheets of paper, but black.
When these sheets have been prepared they are cut up into pieces of
different sizes. The smallest of these sizes is worth a half
tornesel; the next, a little larger, one tornesel; one, a little
larger still, is worth half a silver groat of Venice; another a whole
groat; others yet two groats, five groats, and ten groats. There is
also a kind worth one Bezant of gold, and others of three Bezants,
and so up to ten. All these pieces of paper are [issued with as much
solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver; and
on every piece a variety of officials, whose duty it is, have to
write their names, and to put their seals. And when all is prepared
duly, the chief officer deputed by the Kaan smears the Seal entrusted
to him with vermilion, and impresses it on the paper, so that the
form of the Seal remains printed upon it in red; the Money is then
authentic. Any one forging it would be punished with death.] And the
Kaan causes every year to be made such a vast quantity of this money,
which costs him nothing, that it must equal in amount all the
treasure in the world.
With these pieces of paper, made as I have described,
he causes all payments on his own account to be made; and he makes
them to pass current universally over all his kingdoms and provinces
and territories, and whithersoever his power and sovereignty extends.
And nobody, however important he may think himself, dares to refuse
them on pain of death. And indeed everybody takes them readily, for
wheresoever a person may go throughout the Great Kaan's dominions he
shall find these pieces of paper current, and shall be able to
transact all sales and purchases of goods by means of them just as
well as if they were coins of pure gold. And all the while they are
so light that ten bezants' worth does not weigh one golden bezant.
Furthermore all merchants arriving from India or
other countries, and bringing with them gold or silver or gems and
pearls, are prohibited from selling to any one but the Emperor. He
has twelve experts chosen for this business, men of shrewdness and
experience in such affairs; these appraise the articles, and the
Emperor then pays a liberal price for them in those pieces of paper.
The merchants accept his price readily, for in the first place they
would not get so good an one from anybody else, and secondly they are
paid without any delay. And with this paper-money they can buy what
they like anywhere over the Empire, whilst it is also vastly lighter
to carry about on their journeys. And it is a truth that the
merchants will several times in the year bring wares to the amount of
400,000 bezants, and the Grand Sire pays for all in that paper. So he
buys such a quantity of those precious things every year that his
treasure is endless, whilst all the time the money he pays away costs
him nothing at all. Moreover, several times in the year proclamation
is made through the city that any one who may have gold or silver or
gems or pearls, by taking them to the Mint shall get a handsome price
for them. And the owners are glad to do this, because they would find
no other purchaser give so large a price. Thus the quantity they
bring in is marvellous, though these who do not choose to do so may
let it alone. Still, in this way, nearly all the valuables in the
country come into the Kaan's possession.
When any of those
pieces of paper are spoilt--not that they are so very flimsy
neither--the owner carries them to the Mint, and by paying three per
cent, on the value he gets new pieces in exchange. And if any Baron,
or any one else soever, hath need of gold or silver or gems or
pearls, in order to make plate, or girdles, or the like, he goes to
the Mint and buys as much as he list, paying in this
paper-money.[1]Now
you have heard the ways and means whereby the Great Kaan may have,
and in fact has, more
treasure than all the Kings in the World; and you know all about it
and the reason why. And now I will tell you of the great Dignitaries
which act in this city on behalf of the Emperor.........
In the priests House.
The priest sits at high table with the
other clergy of the court.
Deacon; to the priest.'' Holy Father
the King seemed distracted today, the general seemed well rewarded
from the latest campaign, how though do we reconcile the kings
distraction with the claimed success?
Parish Priest. Yes holy father an
orphaned child in my parish will be without hopes of starting afresh
without usurious debt how are the people to bear the costs , the
bounties of their labours are ever increasing and yet for want of
money there is no traffic in the market square yet people are cold
and hungary in the workhouses.
The Holy Father . The King is seduced my
office is no longer to hear confessions and give guidance but we are
grew rich in the indulgences we must profer on our monarch.
There
are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of
household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary
and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly
censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one
another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury,
which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural
object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not
to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the
birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money
because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of an modes of
getting wealth this is the most unnatural.
Since they
[usurers] sell nothing other than the expectation of money, that is
to say, time, they sell days and nights. But the day is the time of
clarity, and the night the time of repose. It is, therefore, not just
for them to receive eternal light and eternal rest.
- Tabula exemplorum, (13th century) as quoted by Till Düppe, The Making of the Economy: A Phenomenology of Economic Science
In the
Judges Chambers.
DUKE.
Make
room, and let him stand before our face.
Shylock,
the world thinks, and I think so too,
That
thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice
To
the last hour of act; and then, 'tis thought,
Thou'lt
show thy mercy and remorse, more strange
Than
is thy strange apparent cruelty;
And
where thou now exacts the penalty,--
Which
is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh,--
Thou
wilt not only loose the forfeiture,
But,
touch'd with human gentleness and love,
Forgive
a moiety of the principal,
Glancing
an eye of pity on his losses,
That
have of late so huddled on his back,
Enow
to press a royal merchant down,
And
pluck commiseration of his state
87
From
brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,
From
stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd
To
offices of tender courtesy.
We
all expect a gentle answer, Jew.
Porsche disguised as young Lawyer ( Balathazaar)
The
quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It
droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon
the place beneath. It is twice blest:
94
It
blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis
mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The
throned monarch better than his crown;
Gold
Siler and Lead, Cash money, Checking bank money and High powered
Central Bank Money.
PORTIA.
Go
draw aside the curtains and discover
The
several caskets to this noble prince.
Now
make your choice.
PRINCE
OF MOROCCO.
The
first, of gold, who this inscription bears:
'Who
chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'
The
second, silver, which this promise carries:
'Who
chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
This
third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:
'Who
chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'
How
shall I know if I do choose the right?
'All
that glisters is not gold,
Often
have you heard that told;
Many
a man his life hath sold
But
my outside to behold:
Gilded
tombs do worms infold.
Had
you been as wise as bold,
Young
in limbs, in judgment old,
Your
answer had not been inscroll'd:
Fare
you well, your suit is cold.'
Aragon-
'The
fire seven times tried this;
Seven
times tried that judgment is
That
did never choose amiss.
Some
there be that shadows kiss;
Such
have but a shadow's bliss;
There
be fools alive, I wis,
Silver'd
o'er, and so was this.
57
Take
what wife you will to bed,
I
will ever be your head:
So
be gone; you are sped.''
Bossanio.
The
seeming truth which cunning times put on
To
entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
Hard
food for Midas, I will none of thee;
Nor
none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
'Tween
man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead,
Which
rather threaten'st than dost promise aught,
Thy
plainness moves me more than eloquence,
And
here choose I
What
find I here? [Opening the leaden casket.]
Fair
Portia's counterfeit!
so
far this shadow
Doth
limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,
The
continent and summary of my fortune.
You
that choose not by the view,
Chance
as fair and choose as true!
Since
this fortune falls to you,
Be
content and seek no new.
If
you be well pleas'd with this,
And
hold your fortune for your bliss,
Turn
to where your lady is
And
claim her with a loving kiss.
The
courtiers of the Exchequer address the king;
We
economists beholden as we are to the princes of usury and the false
prophets of usury fit the horse foot to the shoe that suits us best
it matters not that the horse becomes lame and less furlongs are
ploughed. As we deny the posion in our own usurious medium we also
deny that what ills our patient could be from any panacea concocted
in our own alchemists crucible.
''Money
is usually defined
from
a functional perspective as a “unit of account, store of value
and
medium of exchange.” However, this definition does not take into
account the quintessential attribute of money that money always
trades at par on demand and the institutional arrangements that
underpin this attribute.Money claims are also hierarchical (see
Mehrling, 2012),
in
the sense that not all money claims are equally strong in their par
on demand promise in all states of the world, and that always and
everywhere money is something different for central banks, banks,
shadow banks and all other participants in the financial ecosystem.
Shadow
Banking
:
The Money View
Zoltan
Pozsar
Put
more bluntly, the hybrid character of banking – always a joint
venture between private capital and governmental liquidity safety
nets – is morphing more and more towards government-sponsored
banking. Yes, I know that is harsh, but sometimes the truth is harsh.
Capitalism and banking may not be divorced, but
certainly are engaged in some form of trial separation.
Paul
McCulley
''The
monetary and financial system of an economy are part of the
socio-politico-economic control mechanism used by every state to
connect the economy with the polity and society. This neural network
provides the administrative means to collect taxes, direct
investment, provide public goods, trade. The money measures provide a
crude but serviceable basis for the accounting system which in turn,
along with the codification of commercial law and financial
regulation are the basis for economic evaluation and the measurement
of trust and fiduciary responsibility among the economic agents. A
central feature of a control mechanism is that it is designed to
influence process. Dynamics is its natural domain. Equilibrium is not
the prime concern, the ability to control the direction of motion is
what counts.
Money
and financial institutions provide the command and control system of
a modern society. The study of the mechanism, how they are formed,
how they are controlled and manipulated and how their influence is
measured in terms of social, political, and economic purpose pose
questions not in pure economics, not even in a narrow political
economy, but in the broad compass of a political economy set in the
context of society. ''
Martin
Shubik
7th
April 1823.
The national debt has, in fact, made more men rich than have a right to be so, or, rather, any ultimate power, in case of a struggle, of actualizing their riches. It is, in effect, like an ordinary, where three hundred tickets have been distributed, but where there is, in truth, room only for one hundred. So long as you can amuse the company with any thing else, or make them come in successively, all is well, and the whole three hundred fancy themselves sure of a dinner; but if any suspicion of a hoax should arise, and they were all to rush into the room at once, there would be two hundred without a potato for their money; and the table would be occupied by the landholders, who live on the spot.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8489/pg8489.html
The national debt has, in fact, made more men rich than have a right to be so, or, rather, any ultimate power, in case of a struggle, of actualizing their riches. It is, in effect, like an ordinary, where three hundred tickets have been distributed, but where there is, in truth, room only for one hundred. So long as you can amuse the company with any thing else, or make them come in successively, all is well, and the whole three hundred fancy themselves sure of a dinner; but if any suspicion of a hoax should arise, and they were all to rush into the room at once, there would be two hundred without a potato for their money; and the table would be occupied by the landholders, who live on the spot.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8489/pg8489.html
Wall Street Owns The Country
A Speech by Mary Elizabeth
Lease (circa 1890)
This is a nation of inconsistencies. The Puritans fleeing from oppression became oppressors. We fought England for our liberty and put chains on four million of blacks. We wiped out slavery and our tariff laws and national banks began a system of white wage slavery worse than the first. Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. The West and South are bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East. Money rules, and our Vice-President is a London banker. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us. We were told two years ago to go to work and raise a big crop, that was all we needed. We went to work and plowed and planted; the rains fell, the sun shone, nature smiled, and we raised the big crop that they told us to; and what came of it? Eight-cent corn, ten-cent oats, two-cent beef and no price at all for butter and eggs-that's what came of it. The politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children, so statistics tell us, starve to death every year in the United States, and over 100,000 shopgirls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for the bread their niggardly wages deny them... We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the foreclosure system wiped out... We will stand by our homes and stay by our fireside by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the government pays its debts to us. The people are at bay; let the bloodhounds of money who dogged us thus far beware.
As
Paul Krugman the Riechsbank prize holder in Economics in honour of
Alfred nobel has remarked regarding another Ecomonists views from
the hetrodox school steve Keen, ''There is No There There.''
- "What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there." -Gertrude Stein, Everybody's Autobiography (1937), ch. 4
- Keen may well equally have replied to Krugman that he was not even wrong?
Pauli
remarked sadly, 'It is not even wrong'."[2]
This is also often quoted as "That is not only not right, it is
not even wrong." or "Das
ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!"
in Pauli's native German.
p.49 Tragedy and HOPEThe
Two Major Goals of Bankers
Hundreds
of years ago, bankers began to specialize, with the richer and more
influential
ones associated increasingly with foreign trade and foreign-exchange
transactions.
Since these were richer and more cosmopolitan and increasingly
concerned
with questions
of political significance, such as stability and debasement of
currencies,
war and peace,
dynastic marriages, and worldwide trading monopolies, they became the
financiers and
financial advisers of governments. Moreover, since their
relationships with
governments
were always in monetary terms and not real terms, and since they were
always obsessed
with the stability of monetary exchanges between one country's money
and another,
they used their power and influence to do two things: (1) to get all
money
and debts
expressed in terms of a strictly limited commodity—ultimately gold;
and (2) to
get all
monetary matters out of the control of governments and political
authority, on the
ground that
they would be handled better by private banking interests in terms of
such a
stable value as
gold.
These efforts
... [were accelerated] with the shift of commercial capitalism into
mercantilism
and the destruction of the whole pattern of social organization based
on
dynastic
monarchy, professional mercenary armies, and mercantilism, in the
series of
wars which
shook Europe from the middle of the seventeenth century to 1815.
Commercial
capitalism passed through two periods of expansion each of which
deteriorated
into a later phase of war, class struggles, and retrogression. The
first stage,
associated with
the Mediterranean Sea, was dominated by the North Italians and
Catalonians but
ended in a phase of crisis after 1300, which was not finally ended
until
1558. The
second stage of commercial capitalism, which was associated with the
Atlantic
Ocean, was
dominated by the West Iberians, the Netherlanders, and the English.
It had
begun to expand
by 1440, was in full swing by 1600, but by the end of the seventeenth
century had
become entangled in the restrictive struggles of state mercantilism
and the
series of wars
which ravaged Europe from 1667 to 1815.
Supremacy of
Charter Companies
The commercial
capitalism of the 1440-1815 period was marked by the supremacy of
the Chartered
Companies, such as the Hudson's Bay, the Dutch and British East
Indian
companies, the
Virginia Company, and the Association of Merchant Adventurers
(Muscovy
Company). England's greatest rivals in all these activities were
defeated by
England's
greater power, and, above all, its greater security derived from its
insular
position.
Industrial
Capitalism 1770-1850
Britain's
victories over Louis XIV in the period 1667-1715 and over the French
Revolutionary
governments and Napoleon in 1792-1815 had many causes, such as its
insular
position, its ability to retain control of the sea, its ability to
present itself to the
world as the
defender of the freedoms and rights of small nations and of diverse
social
and religious
groups. Among these numerous causes, there were a financial one and
an
economic one.
Financially, England had discovered the secret of credit.
Economically,
England had embarked on
the Industrial Revolution.
p.57
The
Key
International
Banking
Families
The
names
of
some
of
these
banking
families
are
familiar
to
all
of
us
and
should
he
more
so.
They
include
Raring,
Lazard,
Erlanger,
Warburg,
Schroder,
Seligman,
the
Speyers,
Mirabaud,
Mallet,
Fould,
and
above
all
Rothschild
and
Morgan.
Even
after
these
banking
families
became
fully
involved
in
domestic
industry
by
the
emergence
of
financial
capitalism,
they
remained
different
from
ordinary
bankers
in
distinctive
ways:
- they were cosmopolitan and international;
- they were close to governments and were particularly concerned with questions of government debts, including foreign government debts, even in areas which seemed, at first glance, poor risks, like Egypt,
Persia,
Ottoman
Turkey,
Imperial
China,
and
Latin
America;
(3)
their
interests were
almost
exclusively in bonds and very rarely in goods, since they admired
"liquidity" and
regarded
commitments in commodities or even real estate as the first step
toward
bankruptcy;
(4) they were,
accordingly, fanatical devotees of deflation (which they called
"sound"
money from its close associations with high interest rates and a high
value of
money) and
of the gold standard, which, in their eyes, symbolized and ensured
these
values; and
(5) they
were almost equally devoted to secrecy and the secret use of
financial
influence in political life. These bankers came to be called
"international
bankers"
and, more particularly, were known as "merchant bankers" in
England, "private
bankers"
in France, and "investment bankers" in the United States.
In all countries they
carried on
various kinds of banking and exchange activities, but everywhere they
were
sharply distinguishable
International
Bankers Felt Politicians Could Not Be Trusted
With Control of
the Monetary System
The influence
of financial capitalism and of the international bankers who created
it
was exercised
both on business and on governments, but could have done neither if
it had
not been able
to persuade both these to accept two "axioms" of its own
ideology. Both of
these were based on the
assumption that politicians were too weak and too subject to
temporary popular pressures to be trusted with control of the money
system; accordingly,
the sanctity of
all values and the soundness of money must be protected in two ways:
by
basing the
value of money on gold and by allowing bankers to control the supply
of
money. To do
this it was necessary to conceal, or even to mislead, both
governments and
people about the nature of
money and its methods of operation.
Money Power Is More
Concerned With Money Than Goods
The obsession
of the Money Power with deflation was partly a result of their
concern
with money
rather than with goods, but was also founded on other factors, one of
which
was
paradoxical. The paradox arose from the fact that the basic economic
conditions of
the nineteenth
century were deflationary, with a money system based on gold and an
industrial
system pouring out increasing supplies of goods, but in spite of
falling prices
(with its
increasing value of money) the interest rate tended to fall rather
than to rise. This
occurred
because the relative limiting of the supply of money in business was
not
reflected in
the world of finance where excess profits of finance made excess
funds
available for lending.
The Money
Power—Controlled by International Investment Bankers--
Dominates
Business and Government
In the various
actions which increase or decrease the supply of money, governments,
bankers, and
industrialists have not always seen eye to eye. On the whole, in the
period
up to 1931,
bankers, especially the Money Power controlled by the international
investment
bankers, were able to dominate both business and government. They
could
dominate
business, especially in activities and in areas where industry could
not finance
its own needs
for capital, because investment bankers had the ability to supply or
refuse
to supply such
capital. Thus, Rothschild interests came to dominate many of the
railroads
of Europe,
while Morgan dominated at least 26,000 miles of American railroads.
Such
bankers went
further than this. In return for flotations of securities of
industry, they took
seats on the
boards of directors of industrial firms, as they had already done on
commercial
banks, savings banks, insurance firms, and finance companies. From
these
lesser
institutions they funneled capital to enterprises which yielded
control and away
from those who
resisted. These firms were controlled through interlocking
directorships,
holding
companies, and lesser banks. They engineered amalgamations and
generally
reduced
competition, until by the early twentieth century many activities
were so
monopolized
that they could raise their noncompetitive prices above costs to
obtain
sufficient
profits to become self-financing and were thus able to eliminate the
control of
bankers. But
before that stage was reached a relatively small number of bankers
were in
positions of
immense influence in European and American economic life. As early as
1909, Walter
Rathenau, who was in a position to know (since he had inherited from
his
father control
of the German General Electric Company and held scores of
directorships
himself), said,
"Three hundred men, all of whom know one another, direct the
economic
destiny of
Europe and choose their successors from among themselves."
The Power of
Investment Bankers Over Governments
The power of
investment bankers over governments rests on a number of factors, of
which the most
significant, perhaps, is the need of governments to issue short-term
treasury bills
as well as long-term government bonds. Just as businessmen go to
commercial
banks for current capital advances to smooth over the discrepancies
between
their irregular
and intermittent incomes and their periodic and persistent outgoes
(such as
monthly rents,
annual mortgage payments, and weekly wages), so a government has to
go
to merchant
bankers (or institutions controlled by them) to tide over the shallow
places
caused by
irregular tax receipts. As experts in government bonds, the
international
bankers not
only handled the necessary advances but provided advice to government
officials and,
on many occasions, placed their own members in official posts for
varied
periods to deal
with special problems. This is so widely accepted even today that in
1961
a Republican
investment banker became Secretary of the Treasury in a Democratic
Administration in
Washington without significant comment from any direction.
The Money Power Reigns
Supreme and Unquestioned
Naturally, the
influence of bankers over governments during the age of financial
capitalism (roughly
1850-1931)
The Development of
Monopoly Capitalism
This conflict
of interests between bankers and industrialists has resulted in most
European countries in the
subordination of the former either to the latter or to the
government
(after 1931). This subordination was accomplished by the adoption of
"unorthodox
financial policies"—that is, financial policies not in
accordance with the
short-run
interests of bankers. This shift by which bankers were made
subordinate
reflected a
fundamental development in modern economic history—a development
which
can be
described as the growth from financial capitalism to monopoly
capitalism. This
took place in
Germany earlier than in any other country and was well under way by
1926.
It came in
Britain only after 1931 and in Italy only in 1934. It did not occur
in France to a
comparable
extent at all, and this explains the economic weakness of France in
1938-
1940 to a considerable
degree.
The Monetary Tactics
of the Banking Oligarchy ( TO 1933)
The inability
of the investment bankers and their industrial allies to control the
Democratic
Convention of 1896 was a result of the agrarian discontent of the
period
1868-1896. This
discontent in turn was based, very largely, on the monetary tactics
of the
banking
oligarchy. The bankers were wedded to the gold standard for reasons
we have
already
explained. Accordingly, at the end of the Civil War, they persuaded
the Grant
Administration
to curb the postwar inflation and go back on the gold standard (crash
of
1873 and
resumption of specie payments in 1875). This gave the bankers a
control of the
supply of money
which they did not hesitate to use for their own purposes, as Morgan
ruthlessly
pressurized Cleveland in 1893-1896. The bankers' affection for low
prices was
not shared by
the farmers, since each time prices of farm products went down the
burden
of farmers'
debts (especially mortgages) became greater. Moreover, farm prices,
being
much more
competitive than industrial prices, and not protected by a tariff,
fell much
faster than
industrial prices, and farmers could not reduce costs or modify their
production
plans nearly so rapidly as industrialists could. The result was a
systematic
exploitation of
the agrarian sectors of the community by the financial and industrial
sectors. This
exploitation took the form of high industrial prices, high (and
discriminatory)
railroad rates, high interest charges, low farm prices, and a very
low level
of farm
services by railroads and the government. Unable to resist by
economic weapons,
the farmers of
the West turned to political relief, but were greatly hampered by
their
reluctance to
vote Democratic (because of their memories of the Civil War).
Instead, they
tried to work
on the state political level through local legislation (so-called
Granger
Laws) and set
up third-party movements (like the Greenback Party in 1878 or the
Populist Party
in 1892). By 1896, however, agrarian discontent rose so high that it
began
to overcome the
memory of the Democratic role in the Civil War. The capture of the
Democratic
Party by these forces of discontent under William Jennings Bryan in
1896,
who was
determined to obtain higher prices by increasing the supply of money
on a
bimetallic
rather than a gold basis, presented the electorate with an election
on a social
and economic
issue for the first time in a generation. Though the forces of high
finance
and of big
business were in a state of near panic, by a mighty effort involving
large-scale
spending they
were successful in electing McKinley.
Money Power Seeks to
Control Both Political Parties
The
Growth of Monopolies and the Excesses of Wall Street
The agrarian
discontent, the growth of monopolies, the oppression of labor, and
the
excesses of
Wall Street financiers made the country very restless in the period
1890-
1900.The Primary Goal of
Capitalism The third notable feature of the whole development is
closely related to this special nature of capitalism. Capitalism
provides very powerful motivations for economic activity because it
associates economic motivations so closely with self-interest. But
this
same feature,
which is a source of strength in providing economic motivation
through the
pursuit of
profits, is also a source of weakness owing to the fact that so
self-centered a
motivation
contributes very readily to a loss of economic coordination. Each
individual,
just because he
is so powerfully motivated by self-interest, easily loses sight of
the role
which his own
activities play in the economic system as a whole, and tends to act
as if his
activities were
the whole, with inevitable injury to that whole. We could indicate
this by
pointing out
that capitalism, because it seeks profits as its primary goal, is
never primarily
seeking to
achieve prosperity, high production, high consumption, political
power,
patriotic
improvement, or moral uplift. Any of these may be achieved under
capitalism,
and any (or
all) of them may he sacrificed and lost under capitalism, depending
on this
relationship to
the primary goal of capitalist activity—the pursuit of profits.
During the
nine-hundred-year
history of capitalism, it has, at various times, contributed both to
the
achievement and to the
destruction of these other social goals.
Commercial
Capitalism
The different
stages of capitalism have sought to win profits by different kinds of
economic
activities. The original stage, which we call commercial capitalism,
sought
profits by
moving goods from one place to another. In this effort, goods went
from places
where they were
less valuable to places where they were more valuable, while money,
doing the same
thing, moved in the opposite direction. This valuation, which
determined
the movement
both of goods and of money and which made them move in opposite
directions, was
measured by the relationship between these two things. Thus the value
of
goods was
expressed in money. and the value of money was expressed in goods.
Goods
moved from
low-price areas to high-price areas, and money moved from high-price
areas
to low-price
areas, because goods were more valuable where prices were high and
money
was more
valuable where prices were low.
Money and
Goods Are Different
''Thus,
clearly, money and goods are not the same thing but are, on the
contrary,
exactly
opposite things. Most confusion in economic thinking arises from
failure to
recognize
this fact. Goods are wealth which you have, while money is a claim on
wealth which you do not have. Thus goods are an asset; money is a
debt. If goods are wealth;money is not wealth, or negative wealth, or
even anti-wealth. They always behave in opposite ways, just as they
usually move in opposite directions. If the value of one goes up, the
value of the other goes down, and in the same proportion.''
Merchants
Became Concerned with Lending of Money
In the course
of time, however, some merchants began to shift their attention from
the
goods aspect of
commercial interchange to the other, monetary, side of the exchange.
They began to
accumulate the profits of these transactions, and became increasingly
concerned, not
with the shipment and exchange of goods, but with the shipment and
exchange of
moneys. In time they became concerned with the lending of money to
merchants to
finance their ships and their activities, advancing money for both,
at high
interest rates,
secured by claims on ships or goods as collateral for repayment.
The New Bankers
Were Eager for High Interest Rates
In this process
the attitudes and interests of these new bankers became totally
opposed
to those of the
merchants (although few of either recognized the situation). Where
the
merchant had
been eager for high prices and was increasingly eager for low
interest rates,
the banker was
eager for a high value of money (that is, low prices) and high
interest
rates. Each was
concerned to maintain or to increase the value of the half of the
transaction
(goods for money) with which he was directly concerned, with relative
neglect of the
transaction itself (which was of course the concern of the producers
and the
consumers).
The
Operations of Banking and Finance Were Concealed So
They
Appeared Difficult to Master In sum, specialization of economic
activities, by breaking up the economic process,had made it possible
for people to concentrate on one portion of the process and, by
maximizing that portion, to jeopardize the rest. The process was not
only broken up into producers, exchangers, and consumers but there
were also two kinds of exchangers (one concerned with goods, the
other with money), with almost antithetical, short-term, aims.The
problems which inevitably arose could be solved and the system
reformed only by reference to the system as a whole. Unfortunately,
however, three parts of the system,concerned with the production,
transfer, and consumption of goods, were concrete and clearly visible
so that almost anyone could grasp them simply by examining them,
while the operations of banking and finance were concealed,
scattered, and abstract so that they
appeared
to many to be difficult. To add to this, bankers themselves did
everything they could to make their activities more secret and more
esoteric. Their activities were reflected in mysterious marks in
ledgers which were never opened to the curious outsider.
The
Relationship Between Goods and Money Is Clear to Bankers
In
the course of time the central fact of the developing economic
system, the
relationship
between goods and money, became clear, at least to bankers. This
relationship, the price system,
depended upon five things: the supply and the demand for goods,
the supply and the demand for money, and the speed of exchange
between money and goods. An increase in three of these (demand for
goods, supply of money, speed of circulation) would move the prices
of goods up and the value of
money
down. This inflation was objectionable to bankers, although desirable
to producers and merchants.On the other hand, a decrease in the same
three items would be deflationary and would please bankers, worry
producers and merchants, and delight consumers (who obtained more
goods for less money). The other factors worked in the opposite
direction, so that an
increase in them (supply of goods, demand for money, and slowness of
circulation or exchange) would be deflationary.
Inflationary
and Deflationary Prices Have Been a Major Force in History for 600
Years
Such changes of
prices, either inflationary or deflationary, have been major forces
in
history for the
last six centuries at least. Over that long period, their power to
modify
men's lives and
human history has been increasing. This has been reflected in two
ways.
On the one
hand, rises in prices have generally encouraged increased economic
activity,
especially the
production of goods, while, on the other hand, price changes have
served to
redistribute
wealth within the economic system. Inflation, especially a slow
steady rise in
prices,
encourages producers, because it means that they can commit
themselves to costs
of production
on one price level and then, later, offer the finished product for
sale at a
somewhat higher
price level. This situation encourages production because it gives
confidence of
an almost certain profit margin. On the other hand, production is
discouraged in
a period of falling prices, unless the producer is in the very
unusual
situation where
his costs are falling more rapidly than the prices of his product.
Bankers
Obsessed With Maintaining Value of Money The redistribution of wealth
by changing prices is equally important but attracts much less
attention. Rising prices benefit debtors and injure creditors, while
falling prices do the opposite. A debtor called upon to pay a debt at
a time when prices are higher than when he contracted the debt must
yield up less goods and services than he obtained at the earlier
date, on a lower price level when he borrowed the money. A creditor,
such as a bank, which has lent money—equivalent to a certain
quantity of goods and services—on
one price
level, gets back the same amount of money—but a smaller quantity of
goods
and
services—when repayment comes at a higher price level, because the
money repaid
is then less
valuable. This is why bankers, as creditors in money terms, have been
obsessed with
maintaining the value of money, although the reason they have
traditionally
given for this obsession—that "sound money" maintains
"business
confidence"—has
been propagandist rather than accurate.
The Two Major Goals of Banker
Hundreds
of years ago, bankers began to specialize, with the richer and more
influential
ones associated increasingly with foreign trade and foreign-exchange
transactions.
Since these were richer and more cosmopolitan and increasingly
concerned
with questions
of political significance, such as stability and debasement of
currencies,
war and peace,
dynastic marriages, and worldwide trading monopolies, they became the
financiers and
financial advisers of governments. Moreover, since their
relationships with
governments
were always in monetary terms and not real terms, and since they were
always obsessed
with the stability of monetary exchanges between one country's money
and another,
they used their power and influence to do two things:
(1) to get all
money
and debts
expressed in terms of a strictly limited commodity—ultimately gold;
and
(2) to
get all
monetary matters out of the control of governments and political
authority, on the
ground that
they would be handled better by private banking interests in terms of
such a
stable value as
gold.
These efforts
... [were accelerated] with the shift of commercial capitalism into
mercantilism
and the destruction of the whole pattern of social organization based
on
dynastic
monarchy, professional mercenary armies, and mercantilism, in the
series of
wars which
shook Europe from the middle of the seventeenth century to 1815.
Commercial
capitalism passed through two periods of expansion each of which
deteriorated
into a later phase of war, class struggles, and retrogression. The
first stage,
associated with
the Mediterranean Sea, was dominated by the North Italians and
Catalonians but
ended in a phase of crisis after 1300, which was not finally ended
until
1558. The
second stage of commercial capitalism, which was associated with the
Atlantic
Ocean, was
dominated by the West Iberians, the Netherlanders, and the English.
It had
begun to expand
by 1440, was in full swing by 1600, but by the end of the seventeenth
century had
become entangled in the restrictive struggles of state mercantilism
and the
series of wars
which ravaged Europe from 1667 to 1815.
Supremacy of
Charter Companies
The commercial
capitalism of the 1440-1815 period was marked by the supremacy of
the Chartered
Companies, such as the Hudson's Bay, the Dutch and British East
Indian
companies, the
Virginia Company, and the Association of Merchant Adventurers
(Muscovy
Company). England's greatest rivals in all these activities were
defeated by
England's
greater power, and, above all, its greater security derived from its
insular
position.
Industrial
Capitalism 1770-1850
Britain's
victories over Louis XIV in the period 1667-1715 and over the French
Revolutionary
governments and Napoleon in 1792-1815 had many causes, such as its
insular
position, its ability to retain control of the sea, its ability to
present itself to the
world as the
defender of the freedoms and rights of small nations and of diverse
social
and religious
groups. Among these numerous causes, there were a financial one and
an
economic one.
Financially, England had discovered the secret of credit.
Economically,
England had embarked on
the Industrial Revolution.
FORM
AND MONEY IN WAGNER'S RING AND
GREEK
TRAGEDY
13
the
business of my admirers to give me as much money as I want, to do my
work in a cheerful mood'(3/10/1855) In 1881 he wrote Clever
though be the many thoughts expressed by mouth or pen about the
invention of money and its enormous value as a civiliser, against
such
praise of it we should consider the curse to which it has always
exposed
in saga and poetry.If gold here appears as the demon strangling
the
innocence of humanity, our greatest poet shews at last the invention
of
paper
money as devil's' mischief. The doom-laden ring of the Nibelungs
might as a stock-exchange portfolio(Börsenportefeuille) bring to
completion the gruesome picture of the ghostly master of the world.
37
Genuinely FAKE
ANNE WENZEL
Fake Rolex Says Fake More interested?
Magicians Club Rotterdam Or
Association Name of the club?
Faded Beauty of rotting tulips
Paulime Oltheten Two Mortor Bikes
called Nice if two pairs of legswalk in sync for a moment
Was it a trick or was it real or is it
unknown. ?
Magician pulls eggs from behind the
ears of the children ( Inceredulity)??
It pretends to be a monument as if
something is being commemorated
No clue to what is being commemorated
its really justy Hot air
Is remmebering also hot air?
Rememberance day is different for Anne
Wenzel in Holland because she is German and not Dutch
I examined the langauge of forms
This is a heroic monument that has been
imposed from above
The question is how you relate to it
I wanrt to ask the visitors to the
museum;
How do you relate to this monument?
It is clearly a structure that has been
imposed from above
But can I be a part of this
remembering?
The Supper at emmaus
Supoposed to be a vermeer forgery by
Van Meegeren composed to fool art historians as a missing link.A
transitional work in his known cataougue Van Meegren workewd out what
would fill the gap in his outputand then made a painting that would
fit within the chronology of orthodox art history.
Not only did he forge materials so that
scientific analysis could not at the time detect the age of the
painting as a forgery what makes it genius is that the duplicate
could not be discovered it had never existed as a vermeer but becomes
a vermeer in the minds of the historians as it fits into the historic
narrative reinforcing their own analysis of what vermmer could have
done.
Anna Wenzel,
Is a monument important.
I don´t know Ido know it has an
important channeling function
I am very immpressed by them , many of
the russian monuments are really grand and that's fantastic
but I know how they are made so that is
what is fantasticBecaus I know exactly what composition you can
analyse the form langauge and how monuyments are contructed . If you
analyse it , you end up with a form that has been designed to impress
me. So, to what extent is this credible?
Moral of the tale Van Meegren,
The supper at emmanuus and a few iother
van meegrens were sold to Hermann Goring added to other Looted works
of arts from across Europe .
After the war Van meegren was
prosecuted for collaborating with the Germans and he was idscovered
to be a forger.
Asked whether the Magicians thought
less of the painting as a piece of art knowing it is fake and not by
the master Vermeer but by the master forger Van meegren, answer
´´people always want to examine a
false bank note.
People want to believe if you 'give
them what they want that is not necessarily a bad thing?
The artist Anna Wendt says in the film
..
In making a monument ….
´´You petrtify the fleeting of a
moment … You also Solidify Time thats what I like about it .
You Solidify Time ?´´ Nice.
In
fact, the choice of Žižek as our theoretical foundation may be
understood as a concession to the undecidability of money as an
inherent feature of the phenomenon itself. Paraphrasing Lacan's
infamous slogan that 'The woman does not exist', our analytical
approach to Bitcoin is underpinned by the following assumption:
'Money does not exist'.This obviously does not mean that there is no
actual money in the world but rather that money has no
transhistorical essence, which would lend it to a general theoretical
definition.Such approach to the study of money also puts us in line
with Dodd's recent invitation to '[embrace] all of the various
empirical forms of money without lapsing into an arbitrary
nominalism'
http://research.cbs.dk/files/44436178/ole_bjerg_how_is_bitcoin_money_postprint.pdf
“As Paul Ricoeur has”“noted:”“It is striking that Plato
contributed to the construction of Euclidian geometry”“through
his work of denominating such concepts as line, surface, equality,
and the similarity of figures, etc., which strictly forbade all
recourse and all allusion to manipulations, to physical
transformation of figures. This asceticism of mathematical language,
to which we owe, in the last analysis, all our machines since the
dawn of the mechanical age, would have been impossible without the
logical heroism of Parmenides denying the entirety of the world of
becoming and of praxis in the name of the self-identity of
significations. It is to this denial of movement and work that we owe
the achievements of Euclid, of Galileo, modern mechanism, and all our
devices and apparatus (Ricoeur 1970:201-202; also in Sahlins
1976:81-82n.21)”
Magician conjures a gold fish swimming
in a bowl. An often made metaphor that we do not know the familiar
which makes up our being except when its not there. With money when
something that isnt there in the first place isn´t believed to be
there in the second place
“The
moment of commemoration itself is entirely stage-managed and proceeds
according to strict protocols. Briefly, there is talk of fellowship.
Only after everyone has gone, and just the withered wreaths remain,
do you have the space to ask yourself how you want to relate to that
imposed heroism. Do you allow yourself to be swept along by it or
not? Everyone knows that the sites where memorial services are held
and the rituals they involve are contrived and designed in order to
stir people’s emotions. I am interested in the personal choice that
the individual makes in regard to these mechanisms. I do not wish to
condemn, but I do want to say to people: know that you are being
manipulated, understand what you see. Moreover, I find the contrast
between the transience of the flowers and the heroism of the monument
very beautiful.”
(Bjerg
2014, 96
–
100).
With Žižek, we can understand the commodity theory of
money
as an effort to found the value of money in the dimension of the
real by pointing to the intrinsic value of gold as the ultimate
support of the currency. It is crucial to note how Žižek's
definition of the real is anything but straightforward and even
varies throughout his writings. At some points, the real is located
in a positive existence beyond the sphere of symbolization. He
defines the real as ‘that which resists symbolization’ and ‘as
the rock upon which every attempt at symbolization stumbles’
(1989, 69, 169). At other points, the real is located in a negative
existence, i.e. as merely a void or an aporia inherent in the
symbolic
15
order.
Žižek states that: ‘the symbolic order itself, is ...
barré,
crossed-out, by a fundamental impossibility, structured around an
impossible/traumatic kernel, around a central lack’ (1989, 122).
This lack is the real.
Credit money plays a crucial
role in Schumpeterian theoretical analysis of economic
development.
Recollection of the famous passage in The Theory of Economic Development
(Schumpeter, 1934,p. 74) should suffice:The banker […] is not so much primarily a middleman in the commodity ‘purchasing power’ as a producer of this commodity […] He stands between those who wishto form new combinations and the possessors ofproductive means. He is essentially a phenomenon of development, though only when no central authority directs the social process. He makes possible the carrying out of new combinations, authorizes people, in thename of society as it were, to form them. He is the ephor of the exchange economy. In other words – as Schumpeter wrote in his ambitious and unlucky
Business Cycles credit creation is the monetary complement of innovation
(Schumpeter, 1964, p. 110):
Recollection of the famous passage in The Theory of Economic Development
(Schumpeter, 1934,p. 74) should suffice:The banker […] is not so much primarily a middleman in the commodity ‘purchasing power’ as a producer of this commodity […] He stands between those who wishto form new combinations and the possessors ofproductive means. He is essentially a phenomenon of development, though only when no central authority directs the social process. He makes possible the carrying out of new combinations, authorizes people, in thename of society as it were, to form them. He is the ephor of the exchange economy. In other words – as Schumpeter wrote in his ambitious and unlucky
Business Cycles credit creation is the monetary complement of innovation
(Schumpeter, 1964, p. 110):
Soddy
”A wit once defined an economist as someone who, when shown that
something works in practice, replies “Ah! But does it work in
theory?”
Steve Keen Quoted here today
http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-loophole-allows-banks-but-not-other-companies-to-create-money-out-of-thin-air/5501623
Quines Two Dogmas of empiricism gives many insights to the
limitations of technocratic faith systems.
´´ As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme
of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in
the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually
imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries — not by
definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible
posits18b comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me
interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in
physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a
scientific error to believe
otherwise.´´
Most of all I like Rupert Sheldrakes, ” 6 mins 50 quoting Thomas
Mc Kenna he says
”Give us one free miracle and we´ll explain
the rest”
And the Pragmatist in me inspired by C S Pierce my favorite modern
philosopher and one of the finest logicians that has come down to us
says this.
CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE: In order to
reason well …. it is
absolutely necessary to possess … such virtues
as intellectual
honesty and sincerity a
nd a real love of truth (2.82). The cause
[of the success of scientific
inquirers] has been that the motive
which has carried them
to the laboratory and the field has been a
craving to
know how things really were … (1-34).
[Genuine
inquiry consists I in diligent inquiry into truth for truth’s
sake
(1.44), … in actually drawing the bow upon truth with
in
tentness in the eye, with energy in the arm (1.235).
[When]
it is no longer the reasoning which determines wh
at the
conclusion shall be, but … the conclusion which
determines what
the reasoning shall be … this is sham
reasoning…. The effect
of this shamming is that men
come to look upon reasoning as mainly
decorative….
Tony Benn once said this
“The House will forgive me for quoting five democratic questions
that I have developed during my life. If one meets a powerful
person–Rupert Murdoch, perhaps, or Joe Stalin or Hitler–one can
ask five questions: what power do you have; where did you get it; in
whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and,
how can we get rid of you? Anyone who cannot answer the last of those
questions does not live in a democratic system.”
Tony Benn Commons Hansard [16 Nov 1998: Column 685] Volume 319
Debate on: European Parliamentary Elections Bill , from 7.20 pm
Satisfying the demands of the persona is the fundamental human
enterprise
Wells endorses Jung’s concept of the persona, which he regards
as susceptible of education. “Beneath the material processes of
economics lies the social idea; its driving force is will. The
clearer the idea, the better organized the will in the personas of
our species, the more hopeful and successful the working of the human
ant-hill.”[10]
Wells proposes that there are three fundamental types of persona
that differ in many ways, but in particular in their attitude toward
property: (1) the peasant; (2) the nomad; (3) the priest. “The
first type is acquisitive, tenacious, and preservative; the second is
rapacious and consumes; the third professes to be more or less aloof
from possession and gain, and to carry on the service of the
community for satisfaction of a quite different type.”[11] Wells
seriously entertains the proposal of Frederick Soddy that the “money
manipulator” may be “a new type whose primary delight is
domination and oppression through relative gain” but concludes that
if this is so, “the conception pervading this book . . . is
unsound” and “[t]here is nothing for it but . . . a class war
against the rich and the able . . . and beginning again upon a
different ground plan, with whatever hope is left to us, amidst the
ruins.”[12]
see also berg new class war is thewar
of debtor class against credit class.
“What is this peculiar phenomenon we
call scientism? It is not science, any more than the shadow is
anything identical with the substance of a thing. Nor is science ever
evidence of scientism. At most, science merely serves to heat up the
imagination of certain minds – and they are not few – who are too
prone to sweeping and unqualified generalizations in the first place.
Scientism is pseudoscience or misinterpreted science. Its conclusions
are sweeping and large, and therefore sometimes pretend to be
philosophical. But it is not a part of philosophy, if by philosophy
we mean the effort to think soberly within the restrictions that
human reflection must impose for itself. No, scientism is a malady –
an ideology. And as such, along with other ideologies that beset us,
it has become a permanent part of our modern culture.” – William
Barrett, Death of the Soul.
At the start of this talk Schumacher tells a joke, it goes like
this,
A Surgeon and Architect and an Economist are discussing whose is
the oldest of their three profession. The Surgeon starts stating well
gentlemen surely it is mine after all God when he created Adam then
made Eve by taking a Rib from Adam a surgery I would say.
The Architect speaks he frowns and laughs, surely dear Mr Surgeon
you must see that God at first created The World and he did this out
of Chaos surely you must admit that this precedes surgery and is
indeed an act of Architecture.
The Economist shakes his head and thumps the table around which
they sit triumphantly. And who do you suppose created the Chaos?
”The value of goods,
expressed in money, is called “prices,” while the value of money, expressed in goods, is
called “value.” p.49 (Commercial Capitalism) Quiqqley shows how Bankers make the distinction and real power lays in the Value of money and not the prices of goods.
expressed in money, is called “prices,” while the value of money, expressed in goods, is
called “value.” p.49 (Commercial Capitalism) Quiqqley shows how Bankers make the distinction and real power lays in the Value of money and not the prices of goods.
Money is about surplus, it is designed
so that surpluses can be traded. A surplus denotes or implys that the
necessary required to meet need has been satisfied.
Fundamentally this is the root of the
objection to usury if we have more than we need we can donate it as
it would be wrong to waste it how much we give away would depend on
how much could be laid down as a store insuring against future
shortages, ( every 7th year grain storage?)
Universal income proposed by Thomas
paine and Napolean Bonaparte amongst others addresses the point Money
and finance capitalism should only be morally permitted where all
necessities are met so that only surplus is eyither traded or stored.
Early origins
From ancient times grain has been stored in bulk. The oldest
granaries yet found date back to 9500
BC[1]
and are located in the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic A settlements in the Jordan
Valley. The first were located in places between other buildings.
However beginning around 8500
BC, they were moved inside houses, and by 7500
BC storage occurred in special rooms.[1]
The first granaries measured 3 x 3 m on the outside and had suspended
floors that protected the grain from rodents and insects and provided
air circulation.[1]
These granaries are followed by those in Mehrgarh
in the Indus
Valley from 6000 BC. The ancient
Egyptians made a practice of preserving grain in years of plenty
against years of scarcity. The climate of Egypt being very dry, grain
could be stored in pits for a long time without discernible loss of
quality. The silo pit, as it has been termed, has been a favorite way
of storing grain from time immemorial in all oriental lands. In
Turkey and Persia, usurers used to buy up wheat
or barley
when comparatively cheap, and store it in hidden pits against seasons
of dearth. In Malta a relatively large stock of wheat was
preserved in some hundreds of pits (silos) cut in the rock. A single
silo stored from 60 to 80 tons of wheat, which, with proper
precautions, kept in good condition for four years or more.
We are thus aligned with the
position pointedly formulated by
Graeber: ‘money has no essence. It’s not
“really”
anything; therefore
, its nature has always been and presumably
always
will be a matter of political contention’ (Graeber 2011,
372). As demonstrated by
Ingham ‘the mainstream, or orthodox,
tradition of modern economics does not
attach much theoretical
importance to money’ (
Ingham 2004, 7).
Studying this paper on the ontological aspects of Bitcoin, today I
will be reading some of Olegs other work on FIAT money as well.
Sourced from this blog here for anyone else who is interested.
Such is, substantially, Socialism’s theory of Capital and
Interest.
DOI-IV-3.52
Not only do we affirm, in accordance with
this theory (which, by the way, we hold in common with the
economists) and on the strength of our belief in Industrial
development, that such is the tendency and the import of lending at
Interest; we even prove, by the destructive results of economy as it
is, and by a demonstration of the causes of poverty, that this
tendency is necessary, and the annihilation of Usury
inevitable.
DOI-IV-3.53
In fact, Rent, reward of Capital,
Interest on Money, in one word, Usury, constituting, as has been
said, an integral part of the price of products, and this Usury not
being the same for all, it follows that the price of products,
composed as it is of Wages and Interest, cannot be paid by those who
have only their Wages, and no Interest to pay it with; so that, by
the existence of Usury,
Labor is Condemned to Idleness and Capital to Bankruptcy.
DOI-IV-3.54
This argument, one of that class which
mathematicians call the reductio ad absurdum, showing the organic
impossibility of lending at Interest, has been repeated a hundred
times by Socialism. Why do not the economists notice
it?
DOI-IV-3.55
Do you really wish to refute the ideas of
Socialism on the question of Interest? Listen, then, to the questions
which you must answer: –
DOI-IV-3.56
1. Is it true that,
though the loaning of Capital, when viewed objectively, is a service
which has its value, and which consequently should be paid for, this
loaning, when viewed subjectively, does not involve an actual
sacrifice on the part of the Capitalist; and consequently that it
does not establish the right to set a price on it?
DOI-IV-3.57
2.
Is it true that Usury, to be unobjectionable, must be equal; that the
tendency of Society is towards this equalization; so that Usury will
be entirely legitimate only when it has become equal for all, –
that is, nonexistent?
DOI-IV-3.58
3. Is it true that a National
Bank, giving Credit and Discount gratis, is a possible
institution?
DOI-IV-3.59
4. Is it true that the effects of the
gratuity of Credit and Discount, as well as that of Taxation when
simplified and restored to its true form, would be the abolition of
Rent of Real Estate, as well as of Interest on Money?
DOI-IV-3.60
5.
Is it true that the old system is a contradiction and a mathematical
impossibility?
DOI-IV-3.61
6. Is it true that Political
Economy, after having, for several thousand years, opposed the view
of Usury held by theology, philosophy, and legislation, comes, by the
application of its own principles, to the same
conclusion?
DOI-IV-3.62
7. Is it true, finally, that Usury has
been, as a providential institution, simply an instrument of equality
and progress, just as, in the Political sphere, absolute monarchy was
an instrument of liberty and progress, and as, in the Judicial
sphere, the boiling-water test, the duel, and the rack were, in their
turn, instruments of conviction and progress?
DOI-IV-3.63
These
are the points that our opponents are bound to examine before
charging us with scientific and intellectual weakness; these,
Monsieur Bastiat, are the points on which your future arguments must
turn, if you wish them to produce a definite result. The question is
stated clearly and categorically: permit us to believe that, after
having examined it, you will perceive that there is something in the
Socialism of the nineteenth century that is beyond the reach of your
antiquated Political Economy.
P. J. PROUDHON.
Quite !
Jack Fitzgerald
Review of The Tyranny of Usury
value.
Practically
all
nations
to-day
have
adopted
the
free
coinage
of
gold-through
the
special
laws
passed
by
the
world's
financiers
,but
this
free
and
unlimited
coinage
of
gold
would
cease
almost
instantly
upon
news
of
any
vast
and
hitherto
unexpected
gold
discoveries.
The
repeal
of
the
Silver
Coinage
Laws
in
most
countries
was
occasioned
by
the
great
silver
discoveries
in
the
Western
States
of
America,
because
financiers
found
that
they
would
not
be
able
to
control
the
supply,
and
therefore
money
would
become
a
much
cheaper
commodity
than
it
is,
and
serve
to
reduce
the
necessity
of
purchasing
bankers'
credit.
Money,
having
been
made
compulsorily
a
scarce
article,
it
would
appear
to
any
intelligent
person
that.........etc.etc
It
is
small
wonder
that
the
history
of
Brit!sh
com
mence
and
industry
is
but
a
recital
of
misery,
distress,
panic,
and
industrial
unrest,
the
horrors
of
which
have
hardly
ever
been
exceeded
in
the
history
of
warfare!
Failure
to
see
this
as
the
root
cause
of
labour
troubles
lias
led
to
a
series
of
extravagant
and
futile
remedies.
Karl
Marx,
who
understood
a
good
many
things,
did
not
understand
the
science
of
money,
and
he
saw
no
remedy
for
industrial
unrest
save
the
State
ownership of
all
industries
and
the
establishment
of
the
Servile
State.
Mr.
Henry
George
could
see
no
evil
in
society
save
what
the
private
ownership
of
land
produces,
and
even
went
so
far
as
to
justify
interest,
the
very
exist
ence
of
which
depends
upon
the
legal
restrictions
re
garding
the
issuing
of
money.
Among
the
various
reformers
of
the
past
century,
one
name
stands
pre-eminent
as
having
unerringly
pointed
at
the
root
of
social
misery.
P.
J.
Proudhon,
the
great
French
philosopher,
saw
that
the
basis
of
monopoly
was
in
the
world's
monetary
systems,
and
fought
desperately
to
overthrow
them.
All
his
eforts
were
at
last
concentrated
on
rthis
one
important
reform,
and
whilst
Karl
Marx
was
receiving
the
plaudits
of
mankind
as
the
discoverer
of
the
only
way
by
which
labour
could
extricate
itself
from
modern
capitalism,
Proudhon
was
neglected
and
almost
forgotten.
The
last
few
years,
however,
have
shown
clearly
that
the
more
intelligent
among
the
Socialists
are
realising
that
the
salvation
.of
mankind
cannot
be effected
by
any
system
of
State
Bureaucracy,
and
that
the
l\1arxian
remedy
would
prove
worse
than
the
disease.
After
all,
what
is
the
fundamental
criticism
of
modern
capitalism
except
that
it
is
a
legalised
system
under
which
the
few
are
permitted
to
take
from
the
masses
all
their
surplus
wealth
under
the
method
of
rent,
interest,
and
profits?
And
what
other
means
are
there
for
overthrowing
the
system
than
by
repealing
the
laws
which
maintain
these
legal
claims?
This
is
what
Proudb,:Jn
aimed
at,
and
it
is
the
only
way
in
which
industrial
peace
will
be
finally
secured.
ARTHUR
KITSON.
pretence
to
knowledge.
And
certainly
this
so-called
''
Study
in
the
Economics
of
Monopoly
''
gives
some
grounds
for
such
criticism.
The
author
commences
with
a
preparatory
note
on
''
Currency
Cranks.''
"
Currency
cranks,"
says
our
Fabian
Oracle,
"
are
the
most
foolish
of
theorists,
and
their
schemes
the
most
futile
of
Utopias."
We
are
then
informed
that
the
author's
speculations
about
''
the
place
of
gold
in
the
machinery
of
commerce
are
put
forward
with
diffidence
precisely
because
of
his
distrust
of
the
company
he
is
keeping.''
We
are
next
informed
that
these
''
speculations
lead
Shakespeares tragic sequence, by
Kenneth Muir p.173
We are accounted poor citizens, the
patricians good. What authority surfiets on, would relieve us; if
they would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we
might guess they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too
dear:The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is an
invenory to particularize their abundance; our sufference is a gain
to them.
Let us revenge this with our pikes,
lest we become rakes;for the gods know I speak this in hunger for
bread, not in thirst for revenge. Li. 14-23
see Gloucester in lear that
´´distribution should undo excess´´
When Menenius claims that the
patricians care for the citizens like fathers the citizens are grimly
sardonic.
Care for us! True indeed they neér
cared for us yet ; suffer us to famish, and their store houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support userers, repeal
daily any wholesome act established against the rich; and provide
more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If
the wars eat us not up, they will; and theres all the love they bear
us.
L.i,77-84
- 126 ff
The Great Money Trick
From
The book advocates a socialist society in which work is performed
to satisfy the needs of all rather than to generate profit for a few.
A key chapter is “The Great Money Trick”, in which Owen organises
a mock-up of capitalism with his workmates, using slices of bread as
raw materials and knives as machinery. Owen ’employs’ his
workmates cutting up the bread to illustrate that the employer —
who does not work — generates personal wealth whilst the workers
effectively remain no better off than when they began, endlessly
swapping coins back and forth for food and wages. This is Tressell’s
practical way of illustrating the Marxist theory of surplus value,
which in the capitalist system is generated by labour.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Steve Keen in Forbes again
I do agree with this comment
though.
Jon Cloke a month ago
Unusual for Forbes to have an economist who actually knows what
he’s talking about! Steve Keen is the original economic Cassandra,
a man whose clear vision and massive understanding makes him
extremely unpopular with the men and women of establishment
economics.
If he has one flaw, though, Steve continues to be a rational
functionalist in that he believes that capitalism can be made to work
properly if the mainstream of economics can be brought to its’
sense and heterodoxy and modern monetary theory can achieve its’
rightful status as the victor over the graven idols of neoclassical
economics generally and the gibberish of austerity in particular.
But it isn’t that mainstream economics is incapable of thinking
rationally, it’s that it’s well-paid not to by the power
structures that make a lot of money out of the system as-is; banks as
intermediaries, pareto optimalities, supply and demand, equilibria,
are and always have been unworkable theoretical abstracts that hide
the inequalities of power which renders the system unworkable. Banks
are not only powerful originators, they work on the IWBHYWBH
principle, I Won’t Be Here You Won’t Be Here. So the powerful
financial incentives of the managerial super-classes to keep
destabilizing the system in pursuit of short-term financial interests
will eventually overwhelm any and all efforts to stabilize it…
97% Owned – Economic Truth documentary – Queuepolitely
cut
QueuePolitely
This whole film was discussed here a year or two back there are various cuts in circulation including a Positive money one I am not sure if an MMT representative made a cut too. Anyway it starts in this link at 13 minutes watch it up to the Ben Bernanke AIG quote.
https://youtu.be/XcGh1Dex4Yo?t=13m
QueuePolitely
This whole film was discussed here a year or two back there are various cuts in circulation including a Positive money one I am not sure if an MMT representative made a cut too. Anyway it starts in this link at 13 minutes watch it up to the Ben Bernanke AIG quote.
https://youtu.be/XcGh1Dex4Yo?t=13m
Blogger Toby said…
''The funny thing is that the money system is both simple and complex. The complexity is, to my eyes, the famous curtain behind which the Wizard hides. The complexity is also embedded in or emerges from the fact that the system does not make sense. We have been told, in whispers and via loudly echoing propaganda, that money is a thing, that it is wealth, and that we earn it to live. The truth is the opposite. It is a Nothing controlled by those managing the system they built in their interest, to keep us non-elites in our hamster wheels. Once we can get it through our brain-washed minds that this is a system of control and nothing else we can begin to push for sensible and lasting change.''
September 8, 2011 at 11:01 PM
http://thdrussell.blogspot.se/2011/08/money-equals.html
http://thdrussell.blogspot.se/2011/08/money-debt-reserves-money-and-debt.html
http://thdrussell.blogspot.se/search/label/MMT
''The funny thing is that the money system is both simple and complex. The complexity is, to my eyes, the famous curtain behind which the Wizard hides. The complexity is also embedded in or emerges from the fact that the system does not make sense. We have been told, in whispers and via loudly echoing propaganda, that money is a thing, that it is wealth, and that we earn it to live. The truth is the opposite. It is a Nothing controlled by those managing the system they built in their interest, to keep us non-elites in our hamster wheels. Once we can get it through our brain-washed minds that this is a system of control and nothing else we can begin to push for sensible and lasting change.''
September 8, 2011 at 11:01 PM
http://thdrussell.blogspot.se/2011/08/money-equals.html
http://thdrussell.blogspot.se/2011/08/money-debt-reserves-money-and-debt.html
http://thdrussell.blogspot.se/search/label/MMT
- Theory of Interest , Etymology.
- Consider case Barclays football, prenier leaugue.
- Is Interest ever questioned? Is it conflated with Inflation
BIS
Papers No 65
51
Keynes’s
monetary theory of interest
Geoff
Tily
1
in
my view it is most useful to approach the theory of liquidity
preference directly as a theory of money as a store of value, a
distinction that is hard and fast. This essential distinction allows
the separation from a theory of money as a means of exchange, founded
on a theory of bank money, with the role of private banks, central
banks and the sovereign authority understood. Under such conditions,
money is normally supplied endogenously, according to the rate of
interest, the wider demands of the various institutional sectors, and
any restraints within the system. The theory of money as a store of
value concerns matters that occur after the creation of bank money,
and belongs sequentially after that theory. This follows from the
work of Victoria Chick and Sheila Dow, who argue that for liquidity
preference theory the quantity of bank money should be taken as
“given”.
14
Following
this, the quantity of income should be taken as given also.
http://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap65c_rh.pdf
- "cause to be interested, engage the attention of," c. 1600, earlier interesse (1560s), from the noun (see interest (n.)). Perhaps also from or influenced by interess'd, past participle of interesse.
-
interest
(n.)
- mid-15c., "legal claim or right; a concern; a benefit,
advantage, a being concerned or affected (advantageously),"
from Old French interest "damage, loss, harm" (Modern
French intérêt), from noun use of Latin interest "it is of
importance, it makes a difference," third person singular
present of interresse "to concern, make a difference, be of
importance," literally "to be between," from inter-
"between" (see inter-)
+ esse "to be" (see essence).
The sense development to "profit, advantage" in French
and English is not entirely clear.
The earlier Middle English word was interesse (late 14c.), from Anglo-French interesse "what one has a legal concern in," from Medieval Latin interesse "compensation for loss," noun use of Latin interresse (compare German Interesse, from the same Medieval Latin source).
Financial sense of "money paid for the use of money lent" (1520s) earlier was distinguished from usury (illegal under Church law) by being in reference to "compensation due from a defaulting debtor." Sense of "personal or selfish consideration" is from 1620s. Meaning "business in which several people are interested" is from 1670s. Meaning "curiosity, feeling that something concerns one, appreciative or sympathetic regard" is first attested 1771. Interest group is attested from 1907; interest rate by 1868.
- usury
(n.)
- c. 1300, "practice of lending money at interest," later, at excessive rates of interest, from Medieval Latin usuria, alteration of Latin usura "payment for the use of money, interest," literally "a usage, use, enjoyment," from usus, from stem of uti (see use (v.)). From mid-15c. as "premium paid for the use of money, interest," especially "exorbitant interest."
The threat from the Irrational
I suggest the new label will be ‘Irrational’. “He’s irrational!” “You’re being irrational.” “That’s irrational.” Irrational is already a term of abuse. What’s needed is to suggest that being irrational can be much more than a personal intellectual short-coming.
A Crank on February 27 1913 wrote this
http://library.brown.edu/pdfs/1140814185593570.pdf
value. Practically all nations to-day have adopted the free coinage of gold-through the special laws passed by the world’s financiers ,but this free and unlimited coinage of gold would cease almost instantly upon news of any vast and hitherto unexpected gold discoveries. The repeal of the Silver Coinage Laws in most countries was occasioned by the great silver discoveries in the Western States of America, because financiers found that they would not be able to control the supply, and therefore money would become a much cheaper commodity than it is, and serve to reduce the necessity of purchasing bankers’ credit.
Money, having been made compulsorily a scarce article, it would appear to any intelligent person that…any system which tended to the exportation of the money-material must be injurious to home trade, whilst one under which money could not travel and lose its nationality, would be the most satisfactory. In the kingdom of the inanimate there is no greater coward or traitor than gold ! The moment danger is scented it runs away