| Subject: | Re: [socialcredit] A brief outline of Social Credit | | Date: | Friday, March 2, 2007 18:43:34 (-0500) | | From: | Joe Thomson <thomsonhiyu @....ca>
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| In reply to: | Message 4512 (written by william_b_ryan) |
Further to my previous response, "McCrary" should've been "McNary."
In regards to Vic's piece, he states on Lines 287-290 :- "THEY CREATE IT. In
the terse phrase of the English economist, Hawtrey, "They create the means
of payment out of nothing."
Now this phrase seems to me to be true enough if we viewed 'nothing' simply
as an intangible. Something that does exist but doesn't have any physical
form. But I don't think that's necessarily the context most Social
Crediters use it in.
Rather I've come to think it's often used to create a sense of revulsion at
what the bank is doing. As if it's engaging in something 'fraudulent'.
But if we are operating under a purely 'creditary' system now, is there
anything 'fraudulent' in what the bank does?
Certainly if it was still issuing promises to pay 'on demand' in 'gold' it
was supposed to have, but didn't, the argument could be made with conviction
that it was. But we've moved beyond that, I think..
And is there anything 'fraudulent' about 'generalising' the borrower's
creditary instrument, his promissory note, and transforming it into
something that is acceptable in the broader community as forms of credit
that can be used as 'money'? Especially when the bank, and ultimately its
shareholders, are on the hook for the extent of that credit?
In Line 304, Vic states:- " The actual creation of credit is an almost
costless operation."
Viewed in the sense of how long it takes a banker to write some figures on
a piece of paper, or maybe now push a few keys on a computer, we could say
this is true.
But it certainly isn't true when viewed in the larger sense of what's
actually involved in banking as a whole. The banks DO have costs, and I
believe they are substantial. Even for the modern 'on-line' versions, like
ING Direct. Making loans is NOT 'costless'. Far from it.
Again, it seems to me, that there is a conscious or unconscious effort to
create a sense of revulsion in regards to what banks do.
Now I am hardly one who enjoys defending banks. I think there are a great
many areas in which they roundly deserve to be criticized, and in which
their actions are utterly unconscionable.
And I think we've become too lax in our oversight and regulation of them,
and the 'powers that be' that we elect to office are often far too trusting
that the banker 'knows best'.
But I don't think we serve our cause well by creating impressions in the
minds of the general public that will end up eventually casting us in a bad
light as 'cranks' when it's revealed, as it will be, that banking is not
'costless'.
Joe.
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