Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Lending, Borrowing and Risk

Neither a borrower nor a lender be. These are the words of the bard. Well, at least they're the words a character of the bard spoke to his son. This advice is as wise today as it was back in Shakespeare's time. It may be a little different today than it was back then, but not much. The basics are pretty much the same. Borrowers risk losing their wealth through interest payments and lose of collateral, lenders risk losing their wealth through the bankruptcy of borrowers. The acts of lending and borrowing need to be measured and the risks on both sides considered before it is agreed upon.

Modern lending seems to have taken a different bent. It appears that the act of lending no longer has any risks, at least not for the biggest banks, the "too big to fail," where the act of borrowing shoulders the complete burden. Yet for many of us, modern life in America has become nearly impossible without borrowing. This has occurred largely because politicians have decided they know best what to do with your money. It seems that not only have they decided they know best what to do with your money that they extract from you through taxation, they have decided that they should be able to force you to buy products and services that they own. In fact, they seem to be moving toward owning all business in this nation and around the world. It seems to me that they have decided they own all your wealth, all the world's wealth, and they're trying to centralize it all into a new world order that will decide how each and every individual in this world will live.

The banks want us to believe we are indebted to them. They want us to believe that they own all the wealth because it was bought with money and credit they created. They want us to believe that since the money was borrowed from them they should have the right to just steal all wealth if the money can't be paid back. On the surface this would seem fair, but things get much more complicated than appearances. In the first place the money is fraudulent since it is simply created out of thin air upon demand. In the second place the product created or labor put forth to earn the money used to pay back banks is very real. It seems to me that someone is getting something for nothing.

What is happening is a spiral downward. The economy is collapsing. People are losing their jobs and are unable to pay their mortgages. The banks foreclose. People are put out on the street, still trying to find work. The houses that were mortgaged remain empty as people without jobs can't afford to buy them, and what bank is going to loan to the unemployed? The empty houses fall apart and lose value. Small banks that have been too heavily invested in these properties or have made other bad decisions become insolvent. They either go out of business or are bought up by bigger, more politically connected banks which are propped up by taxpayer dollars. Money becomes more consolidated. Lending tightens. Properties remain dormant and continue to lose value. People remain unemployed. The economy continues to depend on the whims of a few very wealthy elites at the top of the heap.

Yet we as a nation, as a society, and as independent, freedom loving people aren't powerless. We don't have to sit back and simply let the power elite run the economy into the ground. We don't have to just accept the struggles that are going to be forced upon the poorer under classes. It all starts by recognizing the culprits. It starts with understanding that the lenders, those who pull the strings of the economy, those with the power to threaten the congress of the United States of America with financial devastation and martial law if they are not bailed out, it starts with understanding that they are at fault and they need to be held accountable. This has yet to be done.

Lenders need to be reminded that sometimes when you risk your money you lose it. More than that, the extremely wealthy, the moneyed power elite, the royalty of the modern world, those who run the central banks and multi national corporations of the world and manipulate economies, they need to be held accountable for their misdeeds and unethical behavior. I don't believe these people need to be hanged, but I do think that they should be punished in a way that is sure to be worse than death to them. I think they should be audited and made to pay back from their own personal fortunes all the money they have defrauded from the people of the world. Should that amount to their losing their fortunes then perhaps it would do them some good to actually work for a living and help produce something that would benefit mankind and people would actually voluntarily pay for rather than creating pyramid schemes that funnel all the wealth to themselves and their friends at the top.

Bankruptcy might not be such a bad thing. It forces the bad debt out of the system. It causes the lenders to renegotiate with the borrowers. It could help the parties involved come to a workable solution. It could help restructure terms to make it more palatable for all parties concerned. If done correctly, it might actually help all people involved come to innovative solutions for the problems that crop up through charging unsustainable interest versus living above one's means. States and nations might go bankrupt, but that doesn't necessarily mean austerity for the common folk. It might not be so wise for the extremely wealthy and power elite to break the promises and forsake the commitments they've made to the common folk.

Let us not forget that we, the common folk, the middle class of America, are also lenders here. Our taxes are what paid for the bailouts of the "too big to fail" corporations. Yet we do not get interest. Any interest paid on those debts doesn't go to government, we the taxpayers aren't going to see dividends. The interest paid on the trillions which have funded these bailouts goes right to the private interests that own the central banks. This could amount to billions. Yet we aren't even allowed to see where all this money has gone. Those who were lent the wealth and treasure of the American people don't want the American people to know what they've done with that wealth and treasure. A good, full audit of the Federal Reserve should help shed some light on that. We need a full accounting of how much has been created, how much has been paid back, how much interest has been collected and where all that money has likely ended up.

It seems to me that just about everyone realizes that the system is broken. It seems that just about everyone understands that corruption is rampant. Yet we continue to go about our daily lives maintaining the status quo and letting the illness of corruption fester. If we continue to turn a blind eye to the problems and let the power elite drive the economy as they see fit, it won't be long before the vast majority of those who were living comfortably find themselves in tents while a very few sit in their mansions at the top of the hill overseeing the rest of humanity. An audit of the fed would help to remove the public blinders that have been placed over our eyes by decades of propaganda and disinformation.

In a proper, stable monetary system, credit shouldn't matter so much, the outright ownership of property (rather than mortgaged property) would be more prevalent and saving would be more important than investing. Most of us would likely be taking the advice of the bard and neither lending nor borrowing. There's good reason this advice was given and good reason why it should still be heeded in modern times. Once we come to a better understanding of how the current monetary system works and how it became so corrupt, we can begin the process of overhauling that system. A good place to start might be the Constitution our politicians are supposed to adhere to. A good cleansing of the bad debt, holding those at the top accountable, and a smooth transition to constitutional money would do wonders for the economy. Even just taking the first small steps on such a path could lead one to see a much brighter future.

My archived articles are available at szandorblestman.com. Please visit there to help support me and my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled "The Ouijiers" by Matthew Wayne.

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