ClaytonB
Member
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2011
- Messages
- 10,249
There's something about apologists for central bank inflation that makes my blood absolutely boil. What the central bank does is not complicated -- it prints money that did not exist before and puts it into circulation through a variety of mechanisms of varying complexity. Usually, it injects the money through indirect methods but, sometimes, it literally just mails out checks, so-called "helicopter money". This is not a "conspiracy theory" or even a "far-right smear", it's admitted fact. It's the explicit function of the central bank. Certainly since QE began, the annual injection of money into the economy is on the order of trillions.
Anyone at or above a 5th-grade level of intelligence should be capable of understanding the effect of money-printing. Even a child can understand why private counterfeiting is a crime -- by printing counterfeit money for yourself, you are actually stealing a tiny amount of wealth from everyone. The central bank does precisely the same thing but without having to use an actual printing press (issuing ledger-money instead), and at a scale that dwarfs anything that any private counterfeiter could ever arrange. All those with $10,000 in the bank have vastly more wealth, collectively, than all those with $1M in the bank, collectively. Because most cash is held in account balances of middle-class citizens, inflation is a tax that hits them the hardest.
The central bank usually issues new money in the form of "credit" to its commercial member banks. This acts like an interest-free (or extremely low interest) loan so that they are guaranteed to make a profit from re-loaning / re-investing that cash. This money gets invested in many places but a primary destination is Wall Street investing and banking. This money "trickles down" through investments and purchases into the rest of the market. The first users of the new money get to purchase goods and services at their old, pre-inflation prices. These companies, investors, lobbyists, businesspersons, etc. are closest to the central bank (fewest degrees of separation). The last users of the new money (you and me) will not receive a pay-raise until well after prices have risen. My rent went up by nearly 10% this year, and my rent-increase is mild compared to many Americans. It is certain that all Americans will not be getting 10% raises next year, and probably not even the year after that. This is the basic mechanism by which inflation taxes away money from the poor and middle-class and transfers it to the rich. The primary beneficiary is still the State, but the private-sector rich (including the commercial banks) are really acting as monetary priests who handle the business of bringing in the sacrifices to be offered up to the god-State.
The left claims to be a proponent of "the working American" as against the big rich corporations, and so on. And it's a pretty convincing argument, at first glance. It certainly seems like they're fighting against the corporations and "Wall St. fat-cats", on behalf of ordinary, middle-class Americans. But at all levels of government, the left fully supports the central banking system. I suppose that most of them are just useful idiots, they probably couldn't even balance a checkbook, and so the sophistry and arithmetic wizardy of the Fed economists (the Fed is the biggest employer of economists) leaves them dazed and confused. But at the top, they have to understand how the whole con-game works, because they oversee it. Both "left" and "right" are members of the same Swamp class that has been robbing the American people blind, whether through crony corporate lobbying, inflation, war, sweetheart regulatory favors, etc. for more than a century, since they established their daylight-robbery machine in 1913. Like stage-magicians, they keep pointing people to the "how", but the "how" is irrelevant, all that matters is the "what": they are robbing all of us in broad daylight, and they're getting away with it. What they're doing is completely illegal under any construction.
To shill for the central bank requires that (a) you understand how the central bank works AND (b) you want to convince ordinary people that this is somehow good for them. In my mind, this is indistinguishable from Soviet party officials spreading communist propaganda. They're not just ignorant enthusiasts -- as insiders, they fully understand that what they are doing is making the world worse (for others). Perhaps they're trapped and they have no choice but to spread the propaganda. Perhaps they'll be shot if they don't do it. Who knows. But the point is that they know what they are saying is false, and they're doing it eyes-wide-open with full knowledge that they are spreading ideological venom whose real purpose is to confuse the public and prevent them from ever getting clarity on the simple fact that the Party's agenda is to subjugate and enslave the masses to the service of the Party insiders.
So, feel free to send any central bank shills my way. Step up into the ring and let's have a proper debate. If you win, you get the thread trophy:
Anyone at or above a 5th-grade level of intelligence should be capable of understanding the effect of money-printing. Even a child can understand why private counterfeiting is a crime -- by printing counterfeit money for yourself, you are actually stealing a tiny amount of wealth from everyone. The central bank does precisely the same thing but without having to use an actual printing press (issuing ledger-money instead), and at a scale that dwarfs anything that any private counterfeiter could ever arrange. All those with $10,000 in the bank have vastly more wealth, collectively, than all those with $1M in the bank, collectively. Because most cash is held in account balances of middle-class citizens, inflation is a tax that hits them the hardest.
The central bank usually issues new money in the form of "credit" to its commercial member banks. This acts like an interest-free (or extremely low interest) loan so that they are guaranteed to make a profit from re-loaning / re-investing that cash. This money gets invested in many places but a primary destination is Wall Street investing and banking. This money "trickles down" through investments and purchases into the rest of the market. The first users of the new money get to purchase goods and services at their old, pre-inflation prices. These companies, investors, lobbyists, businesspersons, etc. are closest to the central bank (fewest degrees of separation). The last users of the new money (you and me) will not receive a pay-raise until well after prices have risen. My rent went up by nearly 10% this year, and my rent-increase is mild compared to many Americans. It is certain that all Americans will not be getting 10% raises next year, and probably not even the year after that. This is the basic mechanism by which inflation taxes away money from the poor and middle-class and transfers it to the rich. The primary beneficiary is still the State, but the private-sector rich (including the commercial banks) are really acting as monetary priests who handle the business of bringing in the sacrifices to be offered up to the god-State.
The left claims to be a proponent of "the working American" as against the big rich corporations, and so on. And it's a pretty convincing argument, at first glance. It certainly seems like they're fighting against the corporations and "Wall St. fat-cats", on behalf of ordinary, middle-class Americans. But at all levels of government, the left fully supports the central banking system. I suppose that most of them are just useful idiots, they probably couldn't even balance a checkbook, and so the sophistry and arithmetic wizardy of the Fed economists (the Fed is the biggest employer of economists) leaves them dazed and confused. But at the top, they have to understand how the whole con-game works, because they oversee it. Both "left" and "right" are members of the same Swamp class that has been robbing the American people blind, whether through crony corporate lobbying, inflation, war, sweetheart regulatory favors, etc. for more than a century, since they established their daylight-robbery machine in 1913. Like stage-magicians, they keep pointing people to the "how", but the "how" is irrelevant, all that matters is the "what": they are robbing all of us in broad daylight, and they're getting away with it. What they're doing is completely illegal under any construction.
To shill for the central bank requires that (a) you understand how the central bank works AND (b) you want to convince ordinary people that this is somehow good for them. In my mind, this is indistinguishable from Soviet party officials spreading communist propaganda. They're not just ignorant enthusiasts -- as insiders, they fully understand that what they are doing is making the world worse (for others). Perhaps they're trapped and they have no choice but to spread the propaganda. Perhaps they'll be shot if they don't do it. Who knows. But the point is that they know what they are saying is false, and they're doing it eyes-wide-open with full knowledge that they are spreading ideological venom whose real purpose is to confuse the public and prevent them from ever getting clarity on the simple fact that the Party's agenda is to subjugate and enslave the masses to the service of the Party insiders.
So, feel free to send any central bank shills my way. Step up into the ring and let's have a proper debate. If you win, you get the thread trophy:
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