Posted on 12/01/2001 9:02:46 PM PST by floridarocks
Can someone please explain why we should not abolish the Federal Reserve or explain why lawyers won't discuss the bankruptcy of the corporate US in 1933 the keeps us perpetually indebted to the international bankers. How rich are those Rothschilds anyway? Is there such a thing as kazillion?
The bank pays in the form of bank IOUs!!!!!!!!!!!
It's time for bed. I'll decide in the morning whether it is worth trying to get you to pursue a subject honestly or whether you are more interested in protecting your beliefs than the truth.
I don't notice that at all. If we're now down to pious words about how honest you've been, I'm going to lose my dinner.
I'll decide in the morning whether it is worth trying to get you to pursue a subject honestly
That is a claim that I have not been so far. Coming from you, that's par for the course. When the lies, the absolute BS from kookburger sites, and the feigned inability to understand that you have a spear sticking out of your head don't work, pull out the argumentum ad hominem. I'm not impressed. I am especially not impressed that you would consider yourself a purveyor of truth on this subject. My opinion is that what you're peddling is a bunch of alarmist nonsense that, if implemented, would cause tremendous human misery. I don't expect you to agree, but I also don't expect to see your "reforms" implemented, so on some level I suppose it doesn't matter.
Let’s discuss it. So far, you have only offered silly mischaracterizations, good arguments against positions you pretend I hold, and bad arguments against my actual views. Here’s a very short summary of my actual views.
My Basic Position: The current monetary system is too risky. To fix it, I favor:
1. No taxpayer bailouts of failed banking enterprises.
2. No FDIC guarantees to bank deposits.
3. Accurate accounting for bank operations;
4. Open disclosure of bank operations;
5. No Federal Reserve System
6. Required matching of maturities of assets and liabilities for banking
Your Basic Position: The risk in the current monetary system is just about right.
You acknowledge that the current system is risky but without it you feel it is impossible to have an economy. You also see little distinction between the various alternative ways money can be funneled from lenders to borrowers.
In order to pursue this intellectually, I previously suggested OBJECTIVE measures of risk to evaluate our respective positions against. I suggested:
Risks are too great if the people who reap the rewards when things go right are incapable or unwilling to absorb (or buy insurance against) the losses when things go wrong.
You proceed to interpret this totally incorrectly (initially, I was sure you knew what I meant but purposely misinterpreted it, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an honest misinterpretation on your part).
What I am actually saying is that if you put money in a bank because you think it is a beneficial thing to do, you should be willing to do so without FDIC protection. And if a bank lends money to an enterprise that fails the bank and its depositors should withstand the loss not the uninvolved taxpayer public. That was being offered in support of items 1 and 2 on my above list. In other words, anyone who supports the idea that we should not socialize losses (as FDIC and taxpayer bailouts do), should theoretically favor my first two suggested reforms or at least explain why they don’t.
You offered the alternative NON-OBJECTIVE measure of risk:
Risks are too great if, when we add up all the gains and losses from all the things we invested in over a ten-year period, the losses were larger than the gains. Risks are too little if, when we add up all the gains and losses from all the things we invested in over a ten-year period, we find we had no losses but no gains, either.
The problem with this formulation is that it is not useful for evaluating alternative policy directions and vaguely refers to a collectivist “we.”
Anyway, are you interested in exploring whether my position AS STATED ABOVE is alarmist nonsense or a thoughtful prescription for reform? (yes or no)
P.S. I agree there is zero chance of these reforms being adopted without a cataclysmic crash and/or support from corporate America to rein in an out of control financial system. The latter may not be as far fetched as it sounds. After all, when corporate America was largely immobile manufacturing plants it favored high tariffs; now that capital is highly mobile, corporate America favors low tariffs.
No problem.
6. Required matching of maturities of assets and liabilities for banking
Are you stating that if a bank is going to loan a 30 year mortgage that is must get 30 year commitments from depositors?
What do you think of the other's you are not responding to?
Explain why you posted #308.
Demand deposits can be invested in very short term t-bills.
Variable rate mortgages probably require 1 year CDs.
Anybody stupid enough to put out 30 yr fixed after what happened to the S&Ls in the 70s should just probably have their charters revoked as being sufficiently clueless.
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