Banking for Dummies...

...well, I could understand it. Want to know how you are being screwed financially?

http://www.michaeljournal.org/myth.htm

There are a lot of reasons for the economic crisis of late, but one fundamental of our money system that no politician talks about, or wants to talk about (except libertarians like Ron Paul) is fractional reserve banking, and central banks.


(Image: Might it be illegal for me to make my own money and then lend it out with interest attached?)

Fallen asleep yet? I wouldn't blame you - but this is boring in an important way, if that makes sense.

The link at the top of this post provides a simple analogy for how fractional reserve banking works. It's a good way to gain a basic understanding of how we are perhaps not as prosperous as we could be - and why.

It's not our irresponsible borrowing, or too much or too little regulation (as the 'wingnuts' always argue over). It's more fundamental. While we argue about socialism and capitalism, or government intervention, we have forgotten to notice who controls the money supply.



(Image: Bank of England, London - to be honest, I didn't know, until recently, that it wasn't part of the government. It has been government-owned since 1946, but the people who create the money and lend it out are not part of the government. In the foreground btw is a memorial to those who died in the Great War.)

The answer? Central banks, which are not operated by the government - they are controlled by private bankers. As the American saying goes, "The Federal Reserve is about as Federal as Federal Express".

If you or I created money from nothing, we would be arrested for counterfeiting. And rightly so. However, in the central bank system, private bankers are given special privilege to not only CREATE money from nothing (most of it is digital, not paper); they then LEND that new money to the government. We then have to pay back the interest through our taxes.

However, due to the interest, we cannot ever pay back the debt we now have with the bankers, because even if we gave them ALL of the money available, it would not cover our debt.

That is part of the reason why the national debt is so high among developed nations. Not so much because we took out too many credit cards and mortgages, and not so much because stock traders were irresponsible; but because of the private banksters who are the hidden leech sucking on the wealth created, through goods and services, by the people.