Roger Lewis permalink
May 18, 2011 4:31 am

The current problem is the result of the old adage that there is no honour amongst thieves, you can lump the government in with the thieves but they are really only lieutenants to the banking God Fathers on this one. The banks essentially called each others bluffs on who had gambled beyond the level of the juice ( Vig) they could extract from their numbers game on the street ( we are the Mugs , The Marks ). The result of the Mexican stand-off amongst the Banks was the liquidity crisis and the banks had to admit they had overdone it gambling the future juice away and they were bust. Cue the lieutenants agreeing to put the squeeze on the mugs More Taxes less benefits etc etc and even where we can’t pay in our lifetime it is a blood debt of honour which can never be paid.
We have been sold as patsies by the governments whose franchises were bought and paid for by the Godfathers and the cost of the addiction of the vainglorious politicians has cost the Godfathers nothing they sold the politicians their own promise to pay which is our ability to pay Taxes.
There is a great film called inside job and one commentator uses the Mafia analogy to describe two party politics look at any numbers or Drug racquet and its social hierarchy and the banking system becomes very easy to understand the money is however homeopathic at best and a placebo in all but name.
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Roger Lewis permalink
May 18, 2011 5:17 am

Just posted this at Golem XIV as well.

RogerGLewis said…
Hi Golem and hello to all the other excellent contributors of comments to this blog, there is a lot of reading to do here with the links which are also posted and I will get through it “one grain of sand at a time”.
I was directed here by a comment posted in Sturdy Blog http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/to-whom-do-we-owe-this-money-exactly/#comment-610
There are more and more people seeking answers to unasked let alone unanswered questions my comment is directed more to those who like me agree that there absolutely is a very bad problem and it is what Roy Madron calls the Global Monetocracy its a coporate Oligarchy that has hijaked the Agenda in pursuit of its own narrow interests.

My suggestion is to suggest a simple but effective direct action we can all take to force the hand of Governement where we can vote with the economic power we do still have.

All private Business owners and Individuals should Close bank accounts and trasfer all deposits out of the Banks in private hands and open accounts with the sate owned Banks RBS and Llyods and so forth
THose banks should then be kept in Public ownership and there should be a return to a credit based Honest Money system If any of the other Private Banks survive without Public Assistance them good for them but more regulation and very strict regulation regarding the usefullness of the funn money merry go round needs to follow.

By forcing the issue this way the actions of politicians would be very accountable how would they be able to repeat the current change in Narrative.
Just a quick post and basic idea I’d happily throw all my effort into a joint effort to initiate such a campaign if upon full discussion and reasoning a caucus of opinion felt it was a worthwhile plan.
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Sampson permalink
May 19, 2011 11:02 am

Roger Lewis I like the idea of using the “state controlled” banks to leverage influence on the government, but I fear it could not work for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the Tory government would almost certainly sell on its shares, even if they lost the country a fortune to avoid being held to account by the electorate. It would be relatively simple and would not require an act of parliament. Gideon Osborn could just sign the papers.

The other main issue, and one that is little known and little understood is the role of a shareholder in a company. In most case buying shares in a company does not give you any sort of voting rights or influence on the way the company is run. The board of directors and Company regulations will simply tell you to sell if you don’t like it. Look at the fact that the banking boards are paying out even more in bonuses now than they did before the crisis occurred. You would have thought that the shareholders would have voted NO, NO, NO, but in reality they did not have any say in the matter. The only hope is the government, but they took most of their campaign funds from these same bankers (tens of millions).
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rogerglewis permalink
May 19, 2011 2:32 pm

Hi Sampson,

I understand the point you are making the effect of all depositors going to the State owned banks would force a crisis on the other banks I feel and with every one watching the state owned banks I suspect that the coalition might well fall and any precipitate action taken by a chancellor of the exchequer would be illegal and surely be held to account.
On shareholders voting for remuneration of Boards etc I think one of the problems is that the pension funds are run by the same self justifying system and turkeys as we all know don’t vote for Christmas.
I am rushing out but will give it a bit of thought over the next few days.
There are still some honest people left in Westminster and there must be a way to get something to start to stick.

Best Wishes,

Roger
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Sampson permalink
May 19, 2011 7:40 pm

Roger I had not considered the effect that moving all that money would have on the rest of the banking system. It could precipitate the inevitable total systemic crash, that I think we can all see is a mathematical certainty.

But that was not quite what I was getting at. People power (ala 38 Degrees) can stop them selling off the forests or water down the NHS privatisation bill, but we will not easily force monetary reform, because it hits directly at the power of the rich to have the economy work for them. Like I said Osborn does not need permission from parliament or anyone else to sell the governments shares in the banks. This would prevent any sort of influence being leveraged over them in this way.

As for the power of shareholders, it is almost non-existent with most shares. If you don’t like the way the company is run your only choice is to sell out. So you don’t get any influence here either.

I should say that the mere fact that we are having this discussion is a very sad reflection on society. It just brings home the fact that the populous simply has little or no power.

For anyone interested Professor Mary Mellor, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Northumbria University gives a rather illuminating interview here

http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/2011/05/positive-money-podcast-episode-2-professor-mary-mellor/
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Roger Lewis permalink
May 23, 2011 12:53 pm

Hi Sampson, I have been preoccupied with some other reading the oast couple of days, yet to hear back from Positive money I voluteered to help out on line I live in Sweden these days.
Anyway here is some encouraging stuff happening in the US the Bank of North Dakota I am sure you will be aware of these other initiatives are very encouraging.

I posted the link to my Facebook with this thought.
https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpublicbankinginstitute.org%2Fstate-info.htm&h=ebc4b

This is the stuff, come on get some of the local councillors who hopefully are not up to their necks in Westminster back scratching toady BS to push for some of this. Nationalise Llyods and RBS regionalise them into divisions by counties and launch their own credit money if needs be call it the peoples pound.
The old one Stirling Currency can be called the pound of flesh they certainly have had their pound of all our flesh ( Good Old Shakespeare, Merch of Venice)

I like Ellen Browns writing will have a look at your link to professor mellor now.

Best Wishes,

Roger
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Roger Lewis permalink
May 23, 2011 1:38 pm

Great interview with Professor Mellor , I really enjoyed that very inspiring.
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rogerglewis permalink
June 1, 2011 4:34 am

I owe a great deal to Sturdy Blog for raising this question and to the many comments and links posted. So thanks everyone. I hoe plenty of people are getting some new insights into how the world and the economy seems to stack the cards against the everyday Joe and Johanna.
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Thomas permalink
September 15, 2011 10:41 pm

If the banks are the only people who lend money and you can only get money lended with intrests rates, so they give out 100 and expect 110 back. how can this ever work??? It’s a giant pyramid scheme that’s doomed to fail every 70-100 years. Look back in history. People who are at the top are just hoping to cream as much as they can, then they retire with millions. quickly replaced by the next person hoping to do the same. Therefore nothing ever changes! People who have a greed for money naturally will work in banks therefore you Greedy bankers etc
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Tapestry permalink
September 25, 2011 4:53 am

How can you explore this topic without reference to the role of central bankers?
Equally do you know that the top 500 companies in the USA are all partially (10-20%) owned by a mere 4 banks? (Dean Henderson)
Those banks are owned by a small group of families all inter-married.
Try reading http://the-tap.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-owns-bank-of-england.html
and catch up with Dean Henderson.
If you want to find out what really lies behind the debt, you need to understand the tiny cartel that controls the world’s financial system.
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Roger Glyndwr Lewis permalink
October 3, 2011 5:39 pm

Tapestry this was and is a stellar blog on the issue that turned a lot of people on to the rather cosy ** Free Market” enjoyed by a small cartel well hidden behind some common and trusted ( for want of a better word) institutions. I certainly went on to a lot of further research prompted by the question posed in this blog.

There are a lot of predjudices and cherished certainties that people will not let go of easily this blog raises the debate intelligently and patiently within the comments there is a lot of recommended or suggested reading including your own which informs the debate admirably.

Time for us all to re double our efforts to get those we love and those we care about to start asking the same questions
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Excellent Lecture delivered to House of Lords in 2000.

http://www.honest-money.com/talk.htm
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rogerglewis permalink
April 16, 2011 7:54 am

http://www.honest-money.com/images/THE%20CONTINUING%20RISK%20TO%20THE%20BANKING%20SYSEM-final%20draft.pdf
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zenix

QE is not quite the same as the BoE stealing our money through inflation, but nearly. It does however keep money circulating when the rich go into panic mode and start hoarding all the currency they can get their thieving little mitts on.

You do seem to have missed the whole point about the accounting practices of the banks though.

Every time they “lend” money out, they are in effect doing the same thing as QE. They create an IOU in your name (punch the money into an account for you) and you right them an IOU for the amount “loaned” plus the interest you’ll need to repay.

What is the difference you ask?

Well when the BoE uses QE it does so, so that there is still money moving through the system, staving off the worst of the potential effects of the credit crunch (the fact that the banks are too scared of failure to create any more new money). It is done in the short term interests of society at large, with a mandate from the public, via the government (another debate I know).

The commercial banks do it every day. The charge interest on the money they create. They never had any sort of mandate from the people, because 99% of the people of the UK do not even know that the banks lend out money they do not in fact have.

This in effect subsidises the banks to the tune of tens-hundreds of billions of pounds a year (depending upon whether it is a boom or a bust year).

In essence it is like a Welfare system for already rich.

Now there are many alternatives to this system. Personally I prefer the positive money solution (see http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/)
, but I would like to see this system combined with digital money (in which every pound has an ID code, so that even electronic money cannot easily be counter-fitted). Other alternatives, such as the old gold standard, result in a flat currency, which is a serious issue in a growing economy/population. Besides there is a finite amount of gold, and we will need ever increasing amounts of currency to represent the goods that a growing population needs to live on. A fixed currency would end up with deflationary consequence’s (increasing production, but fixed amounts of currency).

I think the main point though is that the banks need to be prevented from creating their own currency. That should be the preserve of government or non-government, public bodies to decide. The benefit for a growing economy should be with the labour markets, not the money markets.
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Roger Lewis permalink
April 12, 2011 12:00 pm

Here here,

Where do I cast my vote for this?
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Sampson permalink
April 12, 2011 2:39 pm

Roger Lewis

Unfortunately you don’t.

The Tories spent over £10 million during the election. More than half that amount was donated by the bankers, so the current government has already been well paid to see that things don’t change in our favour.

I, amongst many others, have been writing to my MP, The BoE, the Treasury, even the BBC (who’s coverage has been very one sided), but there is simply not enough people who know what is going on and what the alternatives are.

We need to start putting massive pressure on the system to change. The alternative is to sit back and wait for the collapse, but that will result in war, famine and unprecedented bloodshed. We have all but recreated the economic and social conditions that led to the Second World War, but this time it could well go nuclear!

Unfortunately the politicians and oligarchs that make up the capitalist cleptocracy feel rather to safe and conformable at the moment. I think they will not change unless their lives seem to be threatened by mass civil disorder.
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Roger Lewis permalink
April 12, 2011 3:45 pm

Hi Sampson,

I fear you may be right, lets hope not though.
One wonders how to get the BBC or some other mass media to set out all the facts and alternatives, social media is probably a more likely conduit though.
We can but try to pass on what we feel we know and try to understand a way forward with those around us.This blog seems to me to be remarkably effective at setting out the concerns, Positive money and economania also seem very level headed and helpful for those of us who are interested but do not wish to be preached too.
Most people have had bad first hand experiences of the banks like me they may have probably half doubted that it was maybe largely their own fault.
No one likes a fix when all is said and done, lets not give up hope just yet.
thanks for you thoughtful posts here and links I have found them very helpful.

Best wishes
Roger
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Roger Lewis permalink
April 12, 2011 9:36 am

This is really the answer. The Commission for separating Retail from ( Investment ) Banking is a very poor sham.

I have rationalised it down to my own simplistic Metaphor of a Tail Wagging a Dog my king of Country Lads analogy to what this is all about.

. Have you considered that ultimately so called Investment Banking relies on the concept, and a concept is what it is, of Debt Money.

That is a money supply based in a system of IOU’s that are accepted by FIAT( not the Italian Car Giant) as currency. We as the general population accept this Debt Money and it is the fact that we can exchange it for food and shelter that we accept it in payment for our work.
At the most fundamental level investment banking needs retail Banking and the Debt money fractional reserve system that is licensed by those who Govern Us , it has been this way more or less from the time of George 1.

There is a rather overblown and pompous tail (Investment Banking) wagging a once proud and loyal Dog( Just about everyone else including the extinct breed of wonderful hardworking executive Branch bank managers)In business my first Bank manager was Called Bill Turner he worked for Nat West in the Westferry Road Branch in the East End of London.( He was pensioned of in the mid Nineties ).

Now although considered cruel in some circles you really want to Doc, the Tail of your Gun Dog.
Time to Doc the Tail of the banking system. Without docing the tail the dog will be destroyed having been driven half mad.In this case it may well be that this Dog has to be destroyed and we will have to train another one.

This is a very troubling question. Thank you Sturdy Blog for initiating such a helpful discussion

Roger Lewis permalink
April 9, 2011 4:59 am
The fall of debt money capitalism can not be more than 20 years away the failure of Western governments to address the balance in 2007 when they had the chance was a real cop out showing how democracy really functions in our so called democracies. Of course the role of America in the perpetuation of an inherently divisive system can not be underestimated I do believe that the world will evolve away from the broken system that currently prevails I have been reading very gingerly into the concept of Gian democracy there is some interesting stuff on the web from a guy called Roy Madron. There is also some very interesting work which I first came across on kunskapskanalen on well being and inequalities in societies published by RIchard Wilkinson.

http://www.gaiandemocracy.net/articles/GD%20-%20Shared%20P%20and%20P.pdf

I had a breif correspondence with Roy about Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickets work after seeing the lecture Wilkinson gave in Sweden I couldn’t get it out of my mind so much so that six months later I found it on You Tube to hear it again.

http://prosperityuk.com/the-problem/

Henry Ford was asking the same questions that you are asking here back in the 1920′s
the Prosperity UK web site has some very good research and analysis of what Roy calls the Global Monetocracy, the system of Debt Money . I think my research is going to lead me to the notes for Bretton Woods, the end of the Gold Standard and all of that. that was all around the time that Henry Ford gave his speech I think.

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Roger Lewis permalink
April 9, 2011 11:51 am
Edit Bretton woods was in 1944, just about to start ploughing through it anyway, its nearly 30 years since I read anything about it anyhow.

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Because non of them have a clue and listen to the so called ‘Experts’ who are nothing more than mouthpieces.

Try reading Golem XIV – Thoughts

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To Whom Do We Owe This Money, Exactly?
April 8, 2011
tags: Anthony Reuben, austerity measures, bail-out, Bank of England, banks, cuts, David Cameron, debt, deficit, financial crisis, GDP, George Osborne, gilts, global financial crisis, government bonds, government gilts, IMF, Lloyds, mike hewitt, national debt, NickClegg, OBR, ODM, Office for National Statistics, publi sector cuts, public service cuts, RBS, to whom to we owe this money, Who owns UK debt, Who owns US debt, world factbook
I have followed the political debate about the austerity programme of cuts relatively closely over the last few months. I have been witness to countless television and radio debates in which the importance of our credit rating status, so that we may borrow money on better terms, is repeated with military-drummer-like regularity; in which any possible criticism of the assault currently under-way on public services is met with lachrymose alacrity by three words “our national debt”.

Equally, I have been amazed by the rarity of the question “to whom do we owe this money?” It is a fairly esoteric subject, but an important one nevertheless – don’t you think?

Let’s take Cameron, Osborne and Clegg’s puerile analogy of “households in dire trouble” and “maxed out credit cards”. In that situation the first thing I would do would be to sit down and list the entities to whom I owe money; a list of creditors. Only such a list could give me an overview of which are the high interest loans I can pay straight away, whether any restructuring were possible, who would be happy to wait a bit. Is there such a list? If there is, I haven’t seen it. I could not find it on the websites of the OBR, Bank of England, IMF, ONS, or the rather elusive Office of Debt Management (“ODM”).

I will take an analytical leap. It’s a short leap, so bear with me. Governments are very good at hanging bells on figures that help their cause. It is my assumption, and I think it is a fair one, that when things are difficult to find, it is because they are rather inconvenient.

So, I continue to endlessly trawl through information trying to find an answer, but with no success. Instead, I find titbits of aggregated data which only give rise to more questions.

A list of countries by external debt, compiled from the CIA’s World Factbook, makes fascinating reading. I find the figure at the top of the list jaw-dropping. It is a total figure for “the World”. According to this total, the “World” is in external debt to the tune of just under 60 trillion US dollars. Or 95% of the entire world’s GDP. Go back and read that again. How can this be? Is there an alien entity lending US dollars that I know nothing about? Or is the world in debt to private individuals, so isolated and untaxable that they do not count as part of the GDP of any country? Is the fact that, looking down the list, the lowest figures (or unlisted figures) are all totalitarian regimes or tax havens, important?

Next, I found this excellent analysis of US debt, by Mike Hewitt (an economist that until a few years ago was a high-ranking official with NATO). He found that, looking at US external debt, the biggest single creditor by a clear country mile was Japan. Japan itself has one of the largest external debts as a percentage of GDP. One of its main creditors is (you guessed it) the US. An analysis of US debt from 2001 to 2006, shows that the group most in debt (about double the next contender) was “Private Households”. Next were “Federal Government”, “Non-Farm, Non-Corporate Business”, then “Non-Financial Corporate Business”. Banks or Financial Businesses do not even appear on the top ten of debtors. The top four creditors (groups of entities to whom the US owes this money) were “Foreigners”, “Commercial Banks”, “Insurance Companies” and “Federal Reserve”. The same financial sector that the US went further in debt to rescue two years later. Perhaps we are not all in it together.

Next, the BBC piece “Who owns the UK’s debt” by Anthony Reuben. Reuben explains: “In the case of the country as a whole, the way it borrows money is by issuing gilts, which are IOUs, promising to repay an amount of money on a particular date and a specified interest rate until then.” These gilts are issued and auctioned by the ODM. So tracing who buys them, should reveal who owns our debt. Here you are:

Noam Chomsky: The Purpose of Education
October 31, 2013 1:20 PM
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red.blue.abstract.jpg

(UPDATE: October 31, 2013 – Editor’s Note: There is an upcoming Noam Chomsky animated documentary film via Sundance, which we preview the trailer here:

Noam Chomsky: The Purpose of Education
October 31, 2013 1:20 PM
FacebookTwitterDiggLinkedinEmailPrint
red.blue.abstract.jpg

(UPDATE: October 31, 2013 – Editor’s Note: There is an upcoming Noam Chomsky animated documentary film via Sundance, which we preview the trailer here:

For those not familiar with Chomsky’s bio or thinking, below is an original post we featured early 2012 which continues to get views today. Do check out Chomsky’s take on technology beginning at the 6:15 mark – it is FASCINATING to hear his views 18 months later . . . C.J. Westerberg)

“Education is really aimed at helping students
get to the point
where they can learn on their own. . . ”
– Noam Chomsky

Video Below
6:15 Education and the Impact of Technology

7:30 – tech changes now come no where near the tech advances of a century ago:
does not compare to the shift of the sailing ship or a telegraph

7:55 – Technology in education is neutral;
It’s like a hammer – can build or kill

8:32 – If you know what you are looking for the internet can be very valuable

8:50 – always ask if your framework is the right one – what is significant, what isn’t, what should be put aside

9:36 – You can’t expect someone to become a biologist by looking through the Internet

10:25 – well-constructed directive – could be harmful
random exploration through the Internet could be a cult-generator

11:15 – You have to be able to evaluate, interpret and understand

For those not familiar with Chomsky’s bio or thinking, below is an original post we featured early 2012 which continues to get views today. Do check out Chomsky’s take on technology beginning at the 6:15 mark – it is FASCINATING to hear his views 18 months later . . . C.J. Westerberg)

“Education is really aimed at helping students
get to the point
where they can learn on their own. . . ”
– Noam Chomsky

Video Below

#SamizdisSamizdat #BrexitRebeliion #ConquestofDough #Web3BeattheBanStick

Three Main Actors Moon of Alabama branded them FUKUS ( Very Droll ) In Order of the Acronym
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/fukus-strikes-syria-who-won.html
France ( Macron )
UK (MAY)

US ( Trump )
All are leaders with a questionable Mandate, Trumps is strongest arguably but May and Macron remain Establishment Choices. May the DUP supported Own goal Merchant and Macron the Man from Nowhere who the Slog cruelly characterises as a Mother Fucker.

Trump is talking about re looking at TPP, May is obviously Back Tracking on Brexit and Macron is facing challenges to his *Liberalisation reforms )

May and Trump are facing electoral tests Mid Terms in US and Local Elections for MAy.

In Short, all have challenging domestic agendas.

The biggies are not domestic agendas but International Ones.

If the Security Council meeting the main advocates supporting the action were The Netherlands, and Sweden both have been pushing the Syria Bashing.

Sweden has the oldest Central Bank and The Netherlands is, of Course, the beginnings of the modern worlds Capitalist system. The Colonialö/Imperialist International Banking Project runs strongly through this whole thing.

Israel has been fairly quiet I have news feeds from Jewish Chronicle and Haaretz the Israeli News Paper they have been observing keenly but apart from the Domestic Anti Semitism Schtick in Uk and of course the Israeli Strikes on Iranian Targets, Israel has a very Low profile here, in fact barely garner a mention? Staying in Shadows pulling Strings, BiBi is a class operator in the black arts of arm Twisting, he was as a younger man much more dashing and charming he has morphed into a rather unattractive slimeball but I must admit I found the Younger Netanyahu very convincing, not so now.
He has his hand up Trumps back though, all public appearances of the two together show this to be so.

We can usefully distinguish between events, and Characters as well as Domestic and International Dynamics.

Russia, Turkey, Saudi, Iran.

Here is Gets Very Complicated indeed.

3 players are steeped in the intrigues of Petro Dollar Hegemony and Turkey was a key creation of the Post WW1 treaties which brought in the age of Oil and FIAT/GoldStandard and the Fed (The Gold Standard was a FIAT system under the shining exterior, I will not go into that here But Zarlenga’s Lost Science of Money goes into it in depth)

Gas PipeLines Involve all of them.and in that respect we have to bring Ukraine into the Picture as well.

Israel is also a player with the Gas question in respect of the Leviathan fields and other fields in the Eastern Medetaranian this also brings Egypt into the picture. Of Course, Libya and Iraq come into the question from PetroDollar and Energy aspects of the question and lead back to General Wesley Walker.

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As of April 2014, German mainstream media continue to ignore the peaceful weekly Monday demonstrations in now over 34 German cities – defaming them ludicrously as “new right-wing movement”,
#GilletsJuene