Very Tenuously P: London ...

[Joseph Tracy]

I am not so naive that I do not recognize the need for a sound credit  
system. But when people  buy debt and then borrow money based on that  
debt to buy  more debt. and a country's productive economy shrinks  
away because all the money goes into lucrative systems of incestuous  
usury and betmaking that is obviously not sound.   There are lots of  
banks who did not engage in high risk stuff and they still need to  
loan money. Let the economy shift to smaller local economies  
unsupported by armies and tax money given to big banks so they can  
loan it to we the people at interest. If we need big banks let's set  
up our own national bank/s and let the peoples money earn interest.   
And let's take away all citizenship rights from fictional corporate  
entities so they don't buy the Congress.

At its best borrowing should work to maximize productivity,  
competition, quality,  overall prosperity and a shared stake in that  
prosperity.  In other words borrowing is one component of a sound  
system which is really what you are saying too. But it is not a  
foundation; it is a tool. And there is a very big problem with a  
certain kind of borrowing. The global economy is currently borrowing 
( perhaps stealing is equally apt) its productive capacity from the  
finite and up to this point relatively cheap fossil fuels,  
particularly oil and gas.  It is also built on  extreme exploitation  
of people and resources via surrogate overlords;  that is the rich  
are borrowing from the poor with with promissory notes whose value is  
pretty dubious at this point.  All of these systems are emitting high  
levels of ecological. social, and economic toxins. We have  
externalized costs until we are on islands of comfort in the middle  
of wastelands made by the machinery of capitalism.

The problem here is not that we are bailing out a sound banking  
system that serves the common interests of humanity , but that we are  
bailing out the empire's privateers to prop up a suction up and  
trickle down economic model which is just  as reliant on war, theft,  
addiction and slavery today as it was during the heyday of the  
British East India Company.


> Paul has it exactly right.
>
> "and borrowing is not a sound economic model"
>
> Borrowing is very much a sound economic model. The problem is a  
> combination of greed, bad judgement and a lack of integrity. No  
> system based on debt works without the affirmative qualities of  
> those three foundational precepts. Good character on the part of  
> *both* borrower and lender are essential to the integrity of the  
> transaction and the health of the system. From a regulatory  
> perspective a willingness to vigorously enforce the law, not pursue  
> policy, is equally essential.
>
>