Category Archives: Economy

Consumerism is a slander

U.S. enterprise was never about responding to the buyer’s desires or needs. All along, it has been focused on sellers and propagandists, the purveyors of mostly junk.

The market is not driven by demand. Can’t be for the simple reason that it is not possible to demand something that was not first produced and introduced.

So, how to account for this deception? Is it wishful thinking or the result of an economist’s subconscious impulse to generate a theory that does not expose his own dependence. Or, we could decide that this is just another example of projection and the confusion of cause and effect.

Why is so much of our public discourse determined by people who juat talk a lot? Why is it that people who do, do not bother to talk?

Deutschebank Debacle

So, why did Deutschebank keep lending to Donald John Trump even though his credit rating was dismal? Well, all the banks are in a pickle. The requirements of Dodd/Frank to keep records and make them available for periodic inspection, a response to the crash of 2008, combined with the requirements of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, have deprived banks of the only thing of really real value they had to peddle–SECRECY. After all, they paid out millions to ACORN for just one reason, to protect the confidentiality of their records.

Now, thanks to Donald John Trump, who has given Congress reason to want to see his accounts. the industry is reduced to relying on contractual confidentiality, as if they were lawyers. And the courts are not buying it.

Who knew Donald John Trump was going to open so many cans of worms? Law that were put on the books never to be enforced on anyone of significance are being brought out because there is an insignificant in the highest office in the land.

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Deutsche Bank’s Refusal to hand over Trump records

Whether contractual obligations trump legal obligations is likely a significant issue. As I understand it, before the advent of Dodd/Frank, financial institutions, despite being chartered by governmental entities, had no obligations to respond or be accountable to those agencies. Efforts to impose some accountability were first manifest in the Community Redevelopment Act, which sought to enable citizens to inspect local lending practices when a financial institutions sought to expand, merge or set up branches in new communities. ACORN tried to take advantage of the legislation and sued banks to get a look at their books. However, rather than being inspected, the financiers “settled” the complaints with payoffs so large that they eventually financed all ACORN operations. So, when Capitol Hill cut off grants, their funding was no longer an issue.
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Homespun Economics

Why were U.S. factories shut down? Because international transactions provide more opportunities for middlemen (traders, financiers, stockbrokers, importers, transporters, salesmen, jobbers, negotiators, lenders, translators) to capture some of the profit. As a result, the producers get less, the quality goes down and the price of the product goes up or stays the same. For example, towels that used to last fifty years now disintegrate in five.

Debt

Every dollar is an instrument of debt. Nobody knows how many are in circulation and/or held in various accounts both at home or abroad. Visible symbols of invisible obligations. They are like angels, visual representations of virtue dancing on the head of a pin. Counting them is of no significance, especially if the counters do not honor their obligations.
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More on Money

When money was made out of a relatively rare mineral, gold, it seemed practical and reasonable to shut the stuff away in vaults and issue IOUs instead. That is how the Dutch gained control over Britain’s industrial development by hoarding the gold Spain stole from the Americas. Then, after a goodly amount of time, it became obvious that if people credited the certificates, if the issuers proved reliable, then keeping the mineral stash was an essentially useless enterprise. Richard Nixon terminated it officially in 1972. The dollar was liberated from artificial ties to gold and the banksters suddenly realized they needed limits on how many coursed through the economy, if they were going to continue demanding a “cut” for lending the currency (they get for free from the Treasury) out. So, the bankers recruited the assistance of Capitol Hill to limit annual disbursements to whatever had been collected as revenue the prior year. Any excess disbursements have to be borrowed from the banksters and their friends, the hoarders. So, that is the unholy alliance between the capitalists and the denizens of Capitol Hill. If it is all shrouded in a fog, remember that until fairly recently talk about money was considered tabu. In my youth women were not allowed to have any, unless some male relative, father or spouse, approved. Fifty years ago a car salesman would not show me a car unless I brought my husband along. Having been raisedy a single-parent- by-choice, much about American culture came as a surprise. The theory is grand, but the reality comes up short.
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