Usury

[el Gallinazo]

The Illuminati has this wonderful attitude toward morality.  They teach us by the age of 5 that violence against others is wrong.  That stealing is wrong.  By the age of 15 - killing and counterfeiting is wrong.  And they are correct ..........  except for the little exception that they reserve the right to do all of these things themselves.  Violence is called the police and law.  Stealing is called taxes.  Killing is called capital punishment and war, and counterfeiting is the fractional reserve system and central banking.  When we do it, it is a crime.  When they do it, it is God's work and societies redemption.  Nice scam if you can pull it off.  They've been doing well for at least 6000 years in some locales.  Our world is a psychopath's oyster.

You get all these alternative media spokesmen such as Max Keiser and the mythical Tyler Durden touting precious metals as currency, stating that fiat currency is the root of all evil.  Well, the USA for one was on the gold standard from Hamilton's first Bank of the United States until FDR pulled his little racket in 1933 when he outlawed gold for Joe and Jane Bagodonuts.  But a history of this period indicates that it was no monetary Eden, because the snake in Eden is not fiat paper but the fractional reserve banking system.  But do you hear Durden decrying the near infinite expansion and rehypothecation of credit?  Well, not when it inconveniences him.  When the CME raises the margin requirement on the gold contracts by one percent, he reacts like his novel's namesake character when he was about to be castrated.  And outlawing naked CDS's?  Well forget it.  Worse than child abuse.  Zero Hedge is not about to lead us into the Promised Land.

But the true reptile in the Garden seems to be fractional reserve banking.  This is where certain crony capitalists are permitted to counterfeit money they don't have.  It purportedly began as overt fraud by the goldsmiths in 16th century Italy.  At least in those days justice was swift and brutal when a bank run exposed the deceit.  An occupational hazard that Jon Corzine believes himself, with good reason, to be immune to.  I am sure we all know here that  when you go to your local bank to get a loan to buy that hot new red sports car, the bank just makes up the money out of thin air and puts some electrons in your account.  In theory, there was a time when they were suppose to have at least 10% of the counterfeited money either in stock equity or deposits, but this has been watered down to zero in the last 15 years. So the ratio to counterfeit becomes infinite.

Back in the mid 1700's the colonies were issuing their own interest free scrip money and their economies were going great guns with hardly any inflation.  The English Crown and the Bank of England were pissed at this because they were not getting their bankster cut of every transaction, so they outlawed colonial scrip at the point of a gun.  The colonies went into an instant and severe depression.  As Nicole Foss likes to say, money and credit is the SAE 10-40 of the economy's engine.  No money and the engine seizes up in a couple of blocks.  Ben Franklin, an undisputed genius, stated bluntly on several occasions that by far the greatest reason behind the American revolution was the outlawing of colonial scrip.  The truth was that the direct taxation on items such as tea was small potatoes.  The Boston Tea Party was just a price fixing scam by some local jokesters.  Of course they can't teach this in the high schools as it might raise some embarrassing questions from students who haven't had their brains shut down with fluoride, Ritalin, aspartame, MSG, or SSRI soma, assuming there are any left.

But even if you outlawed the banks from doing fractional reserve, would this end the problem?  Well, as a plumber I use to buy a lot of stuff at the supply company.  I always paid my tab on the first of the month, but they gave you an option to let it ride for a 2% monthly fee.  This is de facto fractional reserve banking by a hardware store.  Upon a little thought, the serpent is actually the concept of interest itself, otherwise known in previous centuries as usury.  My Mac OS dictionary has the following definition.

usury |ˈyoō zh (ə)rē|
noun
the illegal action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest.
• archaic interest at such rates.

Well excuse me, Mac dictionary, but the archaic definition of usury was interest at any fucking rate.  Winston must have dropped that down the memory hole.

Strangely enough, both the Vatican (in previous centuries) and Mohammed got this little fact about basic economics 100% right.  Interest, i.e. usury, is the dark side of the force.

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[RE]

Another El G classic WORTHY of the Diner Blog Front Page.

Damn, I hardly have time to WRITE anymore.  Just editing the contributions takes up all my time these days.

RE

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[EndIsNigh]

Nice one El G.

Charles Eisenstein also rightfully points to usury as being fraudulent.  He describes how it contradicts natural systems in that nothing in nature increases in value, as money does while collecting interest, simply by existing and doing no work.  In his view, money should attract a negative interest, so that like the principle of entropy, decays over time.  This would encourage money to be used instead of hoarded since it would decrease in value the more it remains idle.

Taken from Eisensteins' chapter on Usury from his book Sacred Economics (which he's made available for free online, as well as his other great books such as 'The Ascent of Humanity'):

The imperative of perpetual growth implicit in interest-based money is what drives the relentless conversion of life, world, and spirit into money. Completing the vicious circle, the more of life we convert into money, the more we need money to live. Usury, not money, is the proverbial root of all evil.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/sacred_economics_ch_6_usury

RE, would be interesting to get your critique.

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[Golden Oxen]

Another El G classic WORTHY of the Diner Blog Front Page.

Damn, I hardly have time to WRITE anymore.  Just editing the contributions takes up all my time these days.

RE

Why did I think you would consider it a grand work? The title of the piece being Usury, twisted and contorted into a bad mouthing of gold and silver and a praise of fiat. It just doesn't get any more absurd or illogical. By the way the scrip was backed by the land and future crop of the farmer, and none could be reissued until the former was paid off. It was not backed by diarrhea of the mouth politicians buying votes .

Details 1799 lg Stars 5 N61

1799 lg Stars 5 N61

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[RE]

Usury, not money, is the proverbial root of all evil.

You know, I get into Nit-Picky arguments all the time on the "Root of All Evil" question.

Biblical Literalists like Ashvin will point out that what the Bible says is the "the LOVE of Money is the Root of All Evil". Gold Bugs make the case its FIAT Money that is the Root of All Evil. Here, Eisenstein makes the case that is not Money ITSELF that is the Root of All, but the INTEREST on Money that is the source of the issue here.

Break all these arguments down here a bit.  You can't LOVE money if money does not exist in the first place.  WHY do people "Love" Money?  Duh, because in a society and economic system where money is the gateway to all you need to LIVE, you HAVE to love it.  If you are not out there scrounging for Pennies, you are on the Bottom here and getting fucked up the ass on a regular basis.

Making the Money GOLD instead of FIAT does not change that problem at all.  Now instead of scrounging for Paper or Copper Pennies so you are not bottom of the pile, you gotta scrounge for much less available Gold coins!  In this environment, you have even MORE people who are getting Sodomized.

Interest?  Where does that one come from?  Well, if everybody NEEDS Money to live, to have access to the Grain in the Warehouse for a meal, anybody who actually HAS some excess money can Loan it out to poor souls who have none and ENSLAVE them in Debt Servitude the rest of their lives paying off the Interest on the Loan!  GREAT FUCKING DEAL for whoever either controls the Big Pile of Gold OR who controls the Printing Press and Credit Creation either way here.  Control either one of these things, you never have to work for your daily bread another day in your entire life!  OTHER people have to slave away digging coal out of holes in the ground to pay off your loans to them for the Coal they purport to "own".  Nice Racket if you can get it here, and our Illuminati Masters did get it and have been living quite well on this racket for 6000 years or so now.

Once you establish MONEY as the means by which all of the society's production extraction of resource is measured, those who control the resources get rich and stay rich through the Interest system.

You cannot  ELIMINATE Interest from a Monetary system.  As soon as Money starts circulating, some people Got Some, others Got None.  The GNs have to borrow from the GS's to get some.  Yes, on the lowest level your Penurious sort who works and saves his pennies offered up to him for his labor sometimes in some surplus societal organizations can do pretty well, but NOBODY EVER got RICH on their own labor.  You have to control a conduit (Patents, Copyrights et al), control a resource (Oil, Farmlan etc.), control a Means of Production (factories), or control Labor (various forms of Slavery here involved at all levels).

Boil it all down here, it is NOT "Love", "Fiat" or "Interest" that is the ROOT of All Evil here, its the MONEY itself!  It busts the society up into Haves and Have Nots, Jealousy and Greed quickly follow thereafter, Stealing becomes endemic among the Poor and Sloth ad Gluttony pernicious among the Rich, the poor Prostitute themselves and the Rich take advantage of them in every Sexual Perversion you could possibly imagine.  Where do all those SINS come from? MONEY!

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!

RE

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[RE]

RE, would be interesting to get your critique.

Hopefully, my critique offered above manifests my take on this idea well enough.    I was writing it while you were posting up.

RE

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[EndIsNigh]

You make a very strong case and I have to agree with you on this one.  You're right, Eisenstein doesn't take it far enough.  I think he's afraid to.  Ultimately he supports a gift economy, so I believe he could be retaining money in some form, he says for global trade, because most people just can't handle going this far outside the matrix.

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[RE]

You make a very strong case and I have to agree with you on this one.  You're right, Eisenstein doesn't take it far enough.  I think he's afraid to.  Ultimately he supports a gift economy, so I believe he could be retaining money in some form, he says for global trade, because most people just can't handle going this far outside the matrix.

There is GREAT FEAR in nearly all people who have grown up inside of the Money Culture in letting go of it. It's beyond comprehension how society can function without Money.  Money is attributed also to for being responsible for all the great "advances" achieved through the Industrial Revolution.  Once you invent Money, you can aggregate it as "Capital", you cannot do that in a pure barter society.  The invention of such things as the Bond Market and Sovereign Debt made it possible to consolidate the Capital of an entire SOCIETY, and charge each tiny piece of the social debt to each little individual, while the CONTROLLER of the debt issuance took home all the Interest payments on said debt.

This system must DIE, it will DIE.  there is no ROI in a world of extreme Overshoot.  However, there are those remaining in control here who are causing much havoc and making a bad situation much worse than it needs to be.  They are VERMIN in need of EXTERMINATION.  If we want to Save Humanity and the Great Experiment that is Human Sentience and Save the Planet upoin which we live, there is NO CHOICE here now.  The VERMIN must be EXTERMINATED.  Despite what the Pacifists would sell to you as alternative, it is the only way to a Better Tomorrow.  Vermin must be IDENTIFIED, TARGETED, and ELIMINATED.  Every last Cockroach,.

Bring on the Orkin Man.

RE

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[EndIsNigh]

Yes but who will be the Orkin man?  Flesh this one out for us.

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[RE]

Yes but who will be the Orkin man?  Flesh this one out for us.

Ding, ding DING! We HAVE a WINNER!

In all the "Orkin Man" Posts I have EVER made, NOBODY has ever asked that most basic question.   Kudos to you EiN! 

Its impossible to say EXACTLY who the "Orkin Man" will turn out to be here, and whoever he is he is a dangerous sort of fellow overall.  Orkin Men overall often fall into the Hitler/Stalin/Mao rubric, and so because of that a whole lot more Eggs tha Necessary get busted to Make the Omellette.

At the same time though, I think it is possible to put some Checks & Balances on the Orkin Man, whoever he/she turns out to be here.  In the end, that is the real PURPOSE of the Inqusition, which is to keep the entire thing from being controlled by any given psychopathic individual here.

Once you develop the PRINCIPLE here of Vermin Extermination, you then develop CRITERIA for exactly what constitues Vermin and HOW you do the Extermination.  I don't thin any one person can or should be responsible for such decisions, that is why you need the Auto da Fe.  This is the means of identifying Vermin to bring them before the Court of the Inqusition.

Who constitutes the Grand Jury of the Auto da Fe?  J6P for the most part, randomly selected citizens of the society who agree in principle to rejecting the ownership paradigm and Money who will Indict those who will not reject those ideas.

The Orkin Man is really just an Administrator over this system, and it comes from an Agreement that anyone who holds onto ideas of Private Property and Personal Wealth to the exclusion of others should be tried for the level of their crimes.  Those who will repent should not be given the full 9 yards of Inquisition Punishment.  Only the Unrepentant who will not repent should get the full 9  yards here.

A really GOOD Orkin Man should be a Just and Wise one, and this is of course a rare bird to find.  Too often you get Orkin Men like Hitler and Stalin. However, if your Orkin Man has checks and balances set onn him by the social agreement and the crteria of the Inquisition, then the tendencies of Hitler/stalin types should be controllable, at least hopefuly anyhow.

Its really all about developing an adequate retribution paradigm here, and it will likely take a charismatic idnividual to focus this down. Overall though, the decisions on the punshments for the urepentant should be distributed out some, ot the province of one Orkin Man.

I think the Inquisition can be run fairly and the right folks can be brought to Justice and given Punishments to Fit the Crime.  It is the JOB of the Orkin Man to make sure that the principles of Justice defined by the Inquisition are upheld.

RE

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[Golden Oxen]

             

Details Orkin Man ?

Orkin Man ?

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[Ashvin]

I would re-post this on TAE if it were not for the fact that El G so happens to be the only writer here who would not approve of that. 

OK, RE, I guess we are into OMMP Round 2 here.

But first a quick comment...

Biblical Literalists like Ashvin will point out that what the Bible says is the "the LOVE of Money is the Root of All Evil". Gold Bugs make the case its FIAT Money that is the Root of All Evil. Here, Eisenstein makes the case that is not Money ITSELF that is the Root of All, but the INTEREST on Money that is the source of the issue here.

Break all these arguments down here a bit.  You can't LOVE money if money does not exist in the first place.  WHY do people "Love" Money?  Duh, because in a society and economic system where money is the gateway to all you need to LIVE, you HAVE to love it.  If you are not out there scrounging for Pennies, you are on the Bottom here and getting fucked up the ass on a regular basis.

I think it is possible to argue that it is a combination of inherent human qualities to willfully worship Mammon, as Surly would say, and coerced tendencies to love money/material wealth through systemic design (top-down socioeconomic systems), that comprises the Evil we have seen throughout history and to this day. In Biblical terms, the current design of the capitalist, debt-based monetary system brings out the Original Sin present in all mankind (the free will to commit evil acts) and makes it as potent as it could possibly be.

BTW, in my role as Biblical literalist, I believe the most probable interpretation of Genesis is that the Devil presented himself as a shining being to Eve in the Garden of Eden, rather than an actual snake. That is based on the works of a very respectable Hebrew/Biblical Scholar, Mike Heiser.

Back to OMMP...

It sounds to me like you are suggesting we set up a legal system exactly like the one we have, complete with representative, randomly selected grand juries, indictments and an executive department responsible for carrying out judgments based on trials and evidence, except with different laws (much broader definitions of crimes) and harsher punishments. An Inquisition customized for modern times - a.k.a. the US legal system. What is to prevent your legal system from being any less corrupt and ineffective as the current one? The fact that it is initially conceived and forced through by a "charismatic individual", and is run by people who abhor private property?

Here is another criticism I forgot to mention on TAE - the OMMP necessarily draws battle lines between not only the Illuminati and the Inquisition, but the Inquisition and everyone who is morally/ethically opposed to its tactics. I'm sure you would agree that many of those who find it morally repulsive, such as quite a few religious people (especially true Christians, who remember the Inquisition all too well), but even many Atheists, would consider it their ethical DUTY to actively oppose the OMMP. Thus, they will all become your enemies. What becomes of these people? Will they all be slaughtered in order to preserve the end goals of the OMMP? Will you convince yourself that such a genocide is necessary because it is ultimately for their own good, as determined by you and OMMP administrators? Sounds a lot like Illuminati-logic to me.

PS - My responses here may not be as fast-acting as your Chess rules require, so just letting you know that in advance.

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[reanteben]

pardon the detour. this revisionism will not stand.

I would re-post this on TAE if it were not for the fact that El G so happens to be the only writer here who would not approve of that.  

why do you think that is,  ash? as if you can blithely throw-in a 'so happens to be' and an innocent emoticon and your POS history is rewritten.

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[el Gallinazo]

RE

Going past usury to money itself as the root of all evil, you build a compelling argument, and perhaps I chickened out on taking the last leap on the these slippery stepping stones.  The concept of money entered our 3D holographic reality  with the switch of hunter-gatherer society to the "rise" of the city state, which was concomitant with the agricultural revolution (resulting in not only money but tooth decay and arthritis).  Looked at from another angle, tooth decay may be the root of all evil.

David Graeber makes a strong case that even in the city state, among the commoners money played almost no part (if you define it as metal coins) but was pretty much restricted to paying off soldiers and mercenaries.  OTOH, debt existed and careful records were kept of it.  The vast bulk of Sumerian tablets recorded who owned and loaned how much grain in storage,  and almost an indisputable case may be made that the precise recording of grain storage and debt was the cause of human literacy.  Then one must ask how did the commoners in ancient Sumer exchange goods such as horseshoes and toothbrushes.   Was it barter?  Or did they revert to gifting?  I really don't know. 

If we go back further to hunter-gatherers, formal debt disappears and exchange is based on gifting.  Since preliterate cultures tend to develop extraordinary memories in their individuals, there is little doubt that there was some form of informal obligation and calculus with gifting.  But gifting was also a venue for status without obligation.  Various teams would form and compete for status and prestige for which one could throw the biggest and most ostentatious bash, referred to as potlatches among academicians.  The leader of a winning team would become a "big man."  But this status resulted in no material gain or even power over his fellows.   To the contrary, big men often became impoverished.  H-G seem to have been the original Sovereign Men, so much hated and feared by the Illuminati and their alphabet soup minions.  I use the gender specific "man" because there is a lot of evidence that this role was restricted to the male gender.

So after this brief rumination, one might indeed say that money and formal debt are the root of all evil.  As to what the Old Testament says, I really don't give a shit and question its over all track record for veracity.  But to eliminate these evils, society would have to revert to a hunter-gatherer life style and culture.  This has much to be said for it, and RE and Peter have made it quite plain that this would be the direction of their preferences.  I still suspect though that a vastly improved society could be achieved with the elimination of usury.  RE points out how the psychopaths live high on the hog without a moments work by lending their ill gotten surpluses to desperate pissants.  But without usury, there is no profit to it.  Melchizedek lends Snotnose and family 20 bushels of barley until his crop comes in, at which point he is repaid with 20 bushels of barley.  All Mel gets is a reduction in fees from the city silo :-)

As to the selection of the Orkin man, I would recommend the Tibetan approach.  In Tibet, prior to the 1950's Chinese conquest, when the Dali Lama died, after two years, a bevy of trained lamas was selected to keep a close eye on the countryside and watch for young children who could potentially be the reincarnation of the DL soul line.  Various tests were given to likely candidates, until one emerged as the undoubted soul of all the prior Dali Lamas.  As to selecting our Orkin Man, I would suggest we use the same approach, but search for the incoming soul of Robespierre instead.

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[Ashvin]

pardon the detour. this revisionism will not stand.

I would re-post this on TAE if it were not for the fact that El G so happens to be the only writer here who would not approve of that.   

why do you think that is,  ash? as if you can blithely throw-in a 'so happens to be' and an innocent emoticon and your POS history is rewritten.

Stop being such a post-structuralist wanker, ben. 

At least Derrida waited for more than a sentence to be written before deconstructing the author's assertions... and emoticons...

I would re-post this on TAE

=This post about financial history and FRB is worthy of TAE's front page according to my editorial standards

if it were not for the fact that El G so happens to be the only writer here who would not approve of that

=El G is the only person who writes articles on DD who would not approve of a re-posting, so unfortunately, to my legitimate dismay, I will not be able to share it with TAE readers.

Clear enough for you? Those are the facts, ben.

You think I would hesitate to re-post a quality post on economic/financial matters written by you, if I obtained your approval? Nope, not even for a moment, despite my belief that you are extremely arrogant, as well as misinformed, misguided and flat out WRONG about many other things in your general worldview. I remember everything I've said to both you and El G on this forum and on TAE, and ALL OF IT still stands.

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