critique of loon theories around banking/money creation/the federal reserve

[sihhi]

'If there is a problem, let me distance myself from any social policy they may have had.'

That's exactly the line German nationalists used when translating, publishing and distributing key parts of Ford's writings and his Dearborn Independent in the early 1920s. So much so that Hitler salutes him in his 1929 autobiography: "While England sweats to maintain her position in this world, the Jew organizes his attack for its conquest. He already sees the present-day European states as will-less tools in his fist, whether indirectly through a so-called Western democracy, or in the form of direct domination by Jewish Bolshevism. But it is not only the Old World that he holds thus enmeshed, the same fate menaces the New. It is Jews who govern the stock exchange forces of the American Union. Every year makes them more and more the controlling masters of the producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty millions; only a single great man, Ford, to their fury, still maintains full independence." (p640) and then of course Ford happily accepts the Grand Cross of the German Eagle in July 1938 as presented by Nazi ambassadors:

 

[Lazy Llama]

Is there a way to ban people from posting live links so they have to post them broken?

Lazy Llama

There are ways to do that; we use a variant to catch newly registered spammers (most of the time).

One for the collective mods to consider...

 

[frogwoman]

I particularly enjoyed Fords emphatic, once-and-for-all renunciation of anti semitism and his vitriolic rants recanting his previous statements and singing 'ooh aah up the stern, ooh aah up the stern'

oh wait he didn't ever do that, he made some mealy mouthed semi withdrawals after having already been the prime fucking diseminator of anti jewish agit prop for most of his miserable existence. If there was a god he would have aranged things so that henry fucking ford was crushed beneath the wheels of his model fucking T and the corpse pissed upon by union members, jews and black people. He was a maggot whose critique of banking came down to a perverse anti-semetic line and anyone quoting him to support their on critiques of banking should be ashamed of themselves. However anyone who bought and spread the 'we did it guys' line over sandy hook clearly wouldn't know what shame was even if Dame Shame herself rocked up and fucked their eye-socket

/DC

 

[ymu]

If we're going to do that we should do it for all loons, not just one because he's supposedly an OK guy irl and a decent piano player.

I think we do normally insist that links to racist/other hate sites are broken, no?

If he'd do it himself, that would be fab. Otherwise, it's mods on call, which is a bit unfair.

 

[sihhi]

You have to remember at at the time of Henry Ford et al, anti-semitism was a very strong social force a lot bigger than it is today.

Who does Ford quietly support in the Detroit mayoral contest in 1924? Charles Bowels, the Ku Klux Klan candidate, who probably wins a majority of votes but the Republican and Democratic Party unite disqualify some of them alleging fraud - allowing a razor edge victory for the Republican.
The Henry Ford Hospital, later part of the Ford Foundation, blocks all Jews from any employment in the institution white Protestant American doctors and nurses, no Jews, some black cleaners, no Jews. The emergence of 'Only Gentiles Need Apply' in the department stores. Urging the police to round up all suspected Jews as part of the defence of Prohibition. Softly supporting the white rioters that attempt to lynch a black doctor moving out of the black ghetto. Distributing the Dearborn Independent not only to his plant and show-room workers but also to Michigan's massive KKK membership. Later in the 1930s - funding the anti-semitic points around America First and Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin and Social Justice, Gerald L K Smith of Senator Huey Long's Share The Wealth movement and the Union Party. These three vicious movements block the advance of trade unionism, defeat the Wagner Act, act as strikebreakers and disruptors halting the AFL-CIO advance in propaganda to the non-unionised and physical attacks on the unionised.
Father Smith insisting that Nazi German brutality against the Jews was a myth throughout the war and merely a ploy for Jews to immigrate into America as bogus asylum seeks to shore up the Roosevelt vote.

None of the above matters. The Ford who was opposed to banks that refused to lend him super cheap so that he could mkae profits, squeeze his workforce conclude deals to expand and dominate US and world production in motor vehicles (still a risky investment throughout the 1910s and 1920s) - this man is a reliable expert on banking.
This man whose opposition towards banking is based on the decline of his business with the First World War. Someone who is so opposed to "banking" that he sends teams of his company social workers to spy on his employees to keep an eye on that they are taking out mortgages from banks - local banks - banks he likes. This Ford saying something dumb about bankers - this matters.

 

[DotCommunist]

I believe he reprinted lengthly exepts from the protocols in his dearborn. Scum.

 

[sihhi]

I believe he reprinted lengthly exepts from the protocols in his dearborn. Scum.

Yes he did, in part in order to explain the First World War which he was opposed to - simply because it dried up his business - no one wanted personal motor vehicles the middle-class public bought war bonds instead, and trade with Europe was killed. He becomes anti-semitic and anti-banking after 1917 although there are elements of it there before - the bedrock of his ideas are of course anti-labourism and anti-socialism.

 

[frogwoman]

I didn't know most of that mate.

It's amazing how people can think that his general social standing etc has nothing to do with his "opinions" on banking.

As if it can be divorced his other views. His dislike of banking came down to a dislike of jews. Actually when I was searching for the Mein Kampf quote I posted earlier in the thread, one of the first results that came up was from David Icke's forum.

Ymu is right, this filth kills people, it destroys people's lives. Not just the people it's targetted against either. And the only beneficiaries are the ruling class it claims to be against.

 

[free spirit]

Interesting stuff on this thread re Ford, thanks all.

I think I vaguely was aware of some of it, but had forgotten.

 

[sihhi]

jazzz style conspiracism is essentially pre-war US partly race-based populism - it has simply transformed itself with new buzzwords not the dangers of commercial banking now but dangers of fractional reserve banking, not Jewish banking controlling the nation but international banking controlling the nation.

Here is Coughlin's Social Justice which was also in part funded by Ford:

The same ideas: bank deposits aren't based on current or future money, banking is fraud and would have been declared illegal if the nation wasn't taken over by banks, banking and easing or freezing credit is something done on a whim by financiers or bond-merchants ladi-dadi-da tc.

There's nothing there - why do banks - aggregators of promises - multiply as new trade routes are discovered and the agricultural revolution emerge? what does non-bank capitalism look like? what does single-bank state capitalism look like? no one of this is ever answered - because it's always 'focus on the banks lending more than they have' and arrest them or force them onto a gold standard (never explained) (so that our nation wins).

 

[Jazzz]

There's nothing there - why do banks - aggregators of promises - multiply as new trade routes are discovered and the agricultural revolution emerge? what does non-bank capitalism look like? what does single-bank state capitalism look like? no one of this is ever answered - because it's always 'focus on the banks lending more than they have' and arrest them or force them onto a gold standard (never explained) (so that our nation wins).

Bizarre questions. As it is banks who create the money, it would seem logical that they spring up where new money is going to be created in the economy. What does non-bank capitalism look like? Well assuming that full-reserve banking is what you are on about (surely, you aren't asking to do away with lending, or having your money held somewhere safely) I would refer you again to the IMF paper "the chicago plan revisited". It looks like capitalism, except one where we aren't all in debt to the banks and they don't get to own all our stuff.

I really can't believe, in these current times, that someone can post up something like the above as if to imply what nonsense. Those warning against the banks were right! They've just stolen god knows how much from the Cypriots, entire countries like Greece are going down. We bail them out to god knows how much meanwhile banker's bonuses are more than salaries normal people can dream of.

Notably Iceland was very badly rocked, but they have turned the game by REFUSING to bail out the banks like the rest of us did and putting the bankers in jail instead.

Whisper it - Iceland's economy is on its way back. The frozen island on the edge of the Arctic, which had 10 straight quarters of shrinking GDP, is suddenly on a steady run of seven quarters of growth averaging at 2.5% per annum - something that few European countries can boast.
Unemployment has fallen to just below 5% and confidence is returning.
This nascent recovery from economic crisis is testament to the Icelandic character. The people here have for centuries clung to existence on a frozen remote island which is 70% tundra, and where in winter dawn breaks close to noon and dusk happens in the mid afternoon.

"Essentially we're still a nation of farmers and fishermen," says Iceland's President Olafur Grimsson, who has been in office since 1996 and who has twice refused to sign legislation which would have repaid Britain the £2.3bn owed when Iceland's banking system collapsed in 2008, forcing the UK government to reimburse British savers who had Icesave accounts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20936685

 

[frogwoman]

The banks are just an aspect of capitalism, the problem is capitalism and the profit system and the banks are just a symptom of it. How many people has industrial capitalism killed jazzz? how many workers have died because of inadequate safety (within small businesses as well as large corporations) or because of the greed of companies they work for which have nothing to do with producing financial products? somewhere like, for example, the bhopal disaster, was caused by the bad practices of a chemicals company.

Financial capitalism is no better and no worse than industrial capitalism, you cannot concentrate on one to the exclusion of the other. Do you think what Henry Ford wanted (when he was sucking up to the bankers he liked anyway) would have been better? He brought in one-dollar a day pay ffs.

 

[frogwoman]

Do you think that before the advent of fractional banking that capitalism in all its forms (and the state in all its forms) was not killing people? do you think that nobody died or had their quality of life severely impaired through sickness, injury etc caused by the conditions in fords factories, had their opportunities for social life and a good quality of life curtailed from what it would have been if his wealth had been shared out rather than him grabbing it all and using it to fund his filthy writings?

 

[SpineyNorman]

Sickening stuff. You're a disgrace Jazzz - the intellectual dishonesty is bad enough (pretending, I assume to yourself as well as everyone else, that your daft loon arguments haven't been destroyed) but you've associated yourself with antisemites too many times for it to be a coincidence now. It's not just the odd link, or a few links, or even most of them - every piece of 'evidence' you post these days is either direct from an antisemite or from a site that also hosts stuff about holocause denial etc. It makes me feel sick and it reminds me that this kind of filth has a seductive appeal, even to otherwise seemingly pleasant people. It scares the shit out of me, especially as it seems that these vile pieces of shit seem to be having more success in countering the mainstream narrative than the left.

I think it likely that in the not too distant future the shit will likely hit the fan with regards to the economy and a few other crisis points. And people like Jazzz, willingly or not, threaten to ensure that when it does we end up with something even more barbaric than we have now.

Sorry if this sounds over-pessimistic but this shit terrifies me and Jazzz is a reminder that some people are naive enough to be taken in by it, playing a useful idiot role for some really fucking nasty forces.

Fuck you Jazzz

 

[phildwyer]

The banks are just an aspect of capitalism, the problem is capitalism and the profit system and the banks are just a symptom of it.

The point is that capitalism has mutated from an industrial to a financial form, in the West that is.

Usury is the essence of capitalism. Indeed the two terms are arguably synonymous. Capital is money invested at interest. Capitalism treats money as if it were a living creature, magically able to reproduce autonomously.

That was never considered a smart move, is condemned by all major religions and philosophers, generally ends in personal madness and social breakdown etc.

 

[phildwyer]

Sickening stuff. You're a disgrace Jazzz - the intellectual dishonesty is bad enough (pretending, I assume to yourself as well as everyone else, that your daft loon arguments haven't been destroyed) but you've associated yourself with antisemites too many times for it to be a coincidence now. It's not just the odd link, or a few links, or even most of them - every piece of 'evidence' you post these days is either direct from an antisemite or from a site that also hosts stuff about holocause denial etc. It makes me feel sick and it reminds me that this kind of filth has a seductive appeal, even to otherwise seemingly pleasant people. It scares the shit out of me, especially as it seems that these vile pieces of shit seem to be having more success in countering the mainstream narrative than the left.

I think it likely that in the not too distant future the shit will likely hit the fan with regards to the economy and a few other crisis points. And people like Jazzz, willingly or not, threaten to ensure that when it does we end up with something even more barbaric than we have now.

Sorry if this sounds over-pessimistic but this shit terrifies me and Jazzz is a reminder that some people are naive enough to be taken in by it, playing a useful idiot role for some really fucking nasty forces.

Fuck you Jazzz

We've been through this before, but just to remind newer readers that Jazzz is no anti-semite, as he has often said, and indeed is a Jew himself.

It is very important, really very important indeed, to separate the critique of money-lending from anti-semitism. Threads like this have the opposite effect.

You won't have read them, but there are plenty of Americans who'll argue that any critique of capitalism--not usury, but capitalism--is inherently anti-semitic. That's the road you're heading down here.

 

[phildwyer]

You should all realise that the current system is ABSOLUTELY INSANE. Whole countries go down over 'confidence'. Whole countries are in massive amounts of debt that can never be repaid. Banks make absolutely fortunes consistently and when their games fail they are bailed out by the people. It's a massive scam.

Absolutely true. Damn well said.

Money does not exist. Where is all this so-called "money" they're going on about then, if it's so important? Show it to us.

It's really pretty obvious that it doesn't exist, if you'll just think about it for a few minutes, rather than just screaming slander at the messengers.

In fact the vast majority of people in the world know, and have always known, that it doesn't exist. Why? Because it's completely fucking obvious, that's why.

You twits just can't see it because you've been fed bullshit by "economists" all your silly lives.

Lord save us from the half-educated. A little learning is indeed a dangerous thing.

 

[phildwyer]

If we're going to do that we should do it for all loons, not just one because he's supposedly an OK guy irl and a decent piano player.

I didn't expect this of you, frankly.

Such is the fate of the boy who informs the mob that the emperor has no clothes.

 

[phildwyer]

Doug Henwood's left business observer is worth a look, though generally gives a US centric take on things. But I'd always recommend looking at as wide a range of sources as possible.

There's a poster on here, love detective, who really really knows his stuff - if you're lucky he might give you a few pointers too.

You can't agree with Henwood and Love Detective at the same time, you loon.

 

[phildwyer]

deregulated banks are a huge part of the problem

Indeed, we might well say that they are the problem incarnate.

Translated from economese into human, "deregulation" means "letting the banks do whatever they want, i.e. run the world." Am I right or wrong?

 

[phildwyer]

there does appear to have been one of those significant "quantity into quality" developments so beloved of Dialectical Materialism" enthusiasts , with the operation and impact of Finance Capital on a World scale over the last 30 years or so.

I think that's exactly what's happening.

But the development of quantitative into qualitative change is a Hegelian, idealist piece of logic, and nothing to do with "Dialectical Materialism."

Indeed, the aufhebung to which you allude consists precisely in the renewed bestowal of practical power on non-material entities.

 

[phildwyer]

It's commodity fetishism. Pure and simple.

I don't know about "commodity" but banking is fetishism alright.

And because of this madness we allow them invent the existence of things called "Credit Default Options"--fire insurance on each other's homes--worse, on our homes--and then we're surprised when they burn them down.

We must be mad, literally mad. (Wait for the accusations to follow that....)

 

[Blagsta]

If no-one created money then there would be no money. The question is, who should create it and how?

The question surely is about value. How is value created?

 

[Blagsta]

Dwyer outs himself on the side of anti semitism. Who'd have thunk it.

 

[phildwyer]

Dwyer outs himself on the side of anti semitism. Who'd have thunk it.

Are you calling me an anti-semite?

 

[phildwyer]

The question surely is about value. How is value created?

By human activity, du-uh. Money is but a symbol of human activity. Human activity is made into a symbol the better thereby to alienate it from the one who performs it.

By the way, did you just call me an anti-semite?

 

[redsquirrel]

Sorry if this sounds over-pessimistic but this shit terrifies me and Jazzz is a reminder that some people are naive enough to be taken in by it, playing a useful idiot role for some really fucking nasty forces.

I don't think Jazzz is any real danger, after all this is a idiot who suggested sticking things into a main plug.

I find taffboy, xes etc more dangerous they're subtle enough not to fall into the open loonery of Jazzz but still promote this shit. Worse they want to infect the left with this shit.

Jazzz is so far out that you'd have to be already pretty far down this path to listen to him. It's taffboy and the like that are the danger to the young/naive.

 

[frogwoman]

The point is that capitalism has mutated from an industrial to a financial form, in the West that is.

Usury is the essence of capitalism. Indeed the two terms are arguably synonymous. Capital is money invested at interest. Capitalism treats money as if it were a living creature, magically able to reproduce autonomously.

That was never considered a smart move, is condemned by all major religions and philosophers, generally ends in personal madness and social breakdown etc.

Usury existed long before capitalism did though. And there are Islamic states for example where the practice of usury is outlawed but capitalism and its horrific effects continue.

 

[phildwyer]

Usury existed long before capitalism did though.

Usury existed before industrial capitalism. But there's no significant difference between what the banks do today and what a usurer would have done in ancient Athens or medieval Florence. Well, the only significant difference is that they do a hell of a lot more of it today.

And there are Islamic states for example where the practice of usury is outlawed but capitalism and its horrific effects continue.

Not really. They get round the ban in various ways, but it still makes their brand of capitalism less toxic than ours.

 

[frogwoman]

So you're saying capitalism has always existed, I really don't think it has. Capitalism didn't emerge until pretty late in human history, there were other modes of production first such as feudalism. People did not tend to work for profit as wage-labourers during feudal times.