Who is making all the money???

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mikeinie
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Who is making all the money???

Post by mikeinie »

I don’t get it… I mean at a very high level.. I just don’t get it.

Every country is in debt by the $billions, even $trillions. Banks are bust and are being bailed out with borrowed money, and the financial market is taking a beating.

If everybody owes everybody else money, and yet everyone is broke, where is the money coming from that is being loaned out? How can we be broke, the government cut services and ‘reduce public spending’ yet then have billions to pump into failed banks?

Somewhere, someone is getting incredibly rich, and it ain’t me! :-5
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beowulf
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Who is making all the money???

Post by beowulf »

thats all a bit too zen for me at this time of the morning :D
The dogs philosophy on life. If you cant eat it, hump it or fight it,........ Pee on it and walk away!!



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Ahso!
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Who is making all the money???

Post by Ahso! »

I don't think most of it actually exists, Mikeinie. It seems to me to be just debits and credits on computer screens and bank statements. Wasn't it inevitable that the physical supply had to run out until more needed to be printed. That was the reason for doing away with the gold standard, wasn't it? In an economic environment that must constantly grow due to prices slowly being set higher arbitrarily by supply and demand which can be manipulated quite easily, what else should we have expected?

I wonder if in 100 years from now or even sooner it will be common for people to be making a million dollars per week while the financial elite are making hundreds of times more than that.

I think money is becoming the recognized illusion it is, but something tells me thats been said many times before.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,”

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gmc
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Who is making all the money???

Post by gmc »

They were buying and selling money to each other. The ones that made money are the bankers and investment managers that were acting as middlemen, the ones that sold an investment that were an investment backed by a real asset like property except it was an illusion that property could only ever go up in price and people would never default on the loan. that's why goldman sachs are in trouble and face charges of fraud. it was like salting a gold mine and then selling it on to suckers knowing there was nothing there.

It's the insane idea that money exists and the control of the money supply determines how an economy does and is about as far away from capitalism as it is possible to get. At the heart of capitalism is the idea that you have make or grow something to sell to which you can add value. If there is no industry or agriculture you don't have an economy and very soon you are in the shits and if you no longer have an industrial base you are doubly so.

It's all fantasy. Look what's happening with European stock markets because of greece. Why? Unless a company trades with greece or is owed money by them they're not effected so why should their shares be worth less? We have given too much power to bankers and been taken in by the illusion that they matter more than the people who make things.

You might find this of interest.

YouTube - Corruption in America's Banks 1/3

It started in America but the European banks didn't have to follow suit nor did we have to cut back on regulation of our own financial system. The whole thing is due to right wing economic theory and the insane ideas that with no regulation everybody would behave honestly.
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TruthBringer
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Who is making all the money???

Post by TruthBringer »

The billionaires are making the money. Below them is the multi-millionaires. Not the people with 10 to even 20 million. They are doing alright, but it's the 500-1 Billionaires that are making money.

The Goldman Sachs people also came out very nicely. But the ultra rich only got richer. You'll notice that being super rich is a very exclusive club. And only around 2% of the World's population fits into that category.

No one is allowed to get that rich without first being approved by the people who run the show. Sure people win the lottery, but the lottery is pennies compared to the really big players out there. Bill Gates isn't feeling the pinch. Neither is any other billionaire.

The super rich are so rich that they can make and break countries as they choose. And that's exactly what they are doing. Any company that is tied into them, made out very well in this American economic collapse. Goldman Sachs being one of them.

Also, look at the Rockefeller family, the Rothschild family, and the whole bunch. You will find that they are riding this gravy train all the way to the top. Why? Because they are the major players on the chessboard. If you think you will ever get as rich as them think again, because they control the entire playing field. They will never let anyone else get as rich as they are, and they will continue to pass their wealth down from generation to generation, as all of the super elite and super rich do.

So...what do we do in the meantime? We wait for mother nature to crush their wealth, to crush their dreams of domination, and to crush their chessboard. And she will. Very soon.
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Odie
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Who is making all the money???

Post by Odie »

the government as usual, July 1st they have decided to add on another tax grab, its called HST tax, which is Harmonized sales tax at 8%.:-5

Toronto is now spending 40 minion dollars to update City Hall! ---wtf is that?:-5

Property tax hike 5% again this year.



Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada will make over $400,000.00 this year, so he doesn't care, why should he, he has all the money others don't have.

its all for our sticken government because they do not know how to handle their own money!
Life is just to short for drama.
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Bryn Mawr
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Who is making all the money???

Post by Bryn Mawr »

What is money?

Time was that money was a real measure of the wealth that you held - those days are long since gone.

Nowadays, if a government wants more money it just makes a one-sided payment into it's notional account and bingo, there's more money in it.

Of course, it's all illusion. At the end of the day it just means that each unit of currency is worth that much less but in the short term it can plug a hole and you can pay for it later in inflation at home and exchange rate adjustments against the other currencies. Ultimately international asset purchase kicks in and a country ends up not owning its own land and working for the benefit of others.

Problems come when the imbalance is too big or when too many countries try the same trick at the same time (or both as we're seeing today). Then the system starts to break down.

The other problem is turbulence. Steady state systems are good things - until they get disturbed. In moving from one equilibrium to another there is always a stage of chaos in between. Whilst this may mean that the odd billionaire is brought low (Madhoff for example) it more normally means that those with the ability to invest can make short term gains but those who are stretched suffer - the rich get rich and the poor get poorer.

The answer? Who knows. It's far too late to return to the Gold Standard. Europe's trying the shared currency experiment but all that is proving is that unless and until you have unified foreign policy and taxation rules you're forever chasing our tail trying to keep economies in balance.

Personally I've always believed in Mr. Micawber - "income twenty shillings, expenditure nineteen and sixpence, result, happiness. Income twenty shillings, expenditure one guinea, result, misery". Save more than you spend, even as a country, and all will be well in your world.
gmc
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Who is making all the money???

Post by gmc »

Maybe we should follow the greeks lead and firebomb the banks.
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AussiePam
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Who is making all the money???

Post by AussiePam »

gmc;1308346 wrote: Maybe we should follow the greeks lead and firebomb the banks.


Three people got killed in that last reported attack. Two of them were women, so two out of three of the dead must not have been bank bosses, but just ordinary workers, in the wrong place.
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gmc
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Who is making all the money???

Post by gmc »

AussiePam;1308353 wrote: Three people got killed in that last reported attack. Two of them were women, so two out of three of the dead must not have been bank bosses, but just ordinary workers, in the wrong place.


Obviously I meant without killing people. The basic principle has merit though. It seems to be the only way governments can understand how angry people are over all of this.

With all the bank mergers in the UK it is the ordinary staff that are being made redundant. You are talking about people who have worked there for twenty thirty years who suddenly find themselves redundant through no fault of their own and it's the staff in the branches taking the brunt of it. Meanwhile the banks still pay massive bonuses kidding us all it's the only way they can keep staff who can go to any bank. In any other company merger the first to go are usually the higher earners in management not the ordinary staff.
mikeinie
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Who is making all the money???

Post by mikeinie »

One of the women that was killed in Greece in the bank was 4 months pregnant. So sad.

I totally understand why the Greeks are so angry, their county is virtually has been wiped out of any value, and it is due to corruption and greed, but killing people…. That is too far.

The real irony is, they have only introduced wage freezes, not even wage cuts, and further more they want to raise the retirement age to 65 from the current 55.

Where in the world (other than Greece) do people get to retire at 55? I think all their borrowed money has fed a generation of greedy people living on borrowed money who do not want to pay it back.

I know Ireland is bad, and I hate what is happening here and our government for getting us into this mess, but at least we are trying to be responsible and are taking cut backs and trying to save what is left of our country.

I think France and Germany should be ashamed of themselves as well. Wasn’t it their banks that leant all this money uncontrollably to Greece and other such countries? Is there no accountability with the larger countries that let these countries get so far into debt?

There are laws, that if a person goes to a bar and get totally p1ssed drunk, and then goes out and gets into a car and kills someone, that the bar who served this person so many drinks without cutting him off could be held accountable as well.

Shouldn’t this apply to the banks and ‘money markets’ that let this whole thing get out of control?? Why are they not being held responsible for this disgraceful situation of lending money which they should have known could never be paid back?
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