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| Joined: | Mon Nov 21st, 2005 |
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I started watching that Award Winning Documentary and I stopped immediately. I stopped to write something as a warning to anyone who may also be inclined to watch that Award Winning Documentary.
If the DOOM on the horizon is seen as inevitable by enough people it will be so. If enough people know that honest working people, the people who actually produce wealth, and therefore the people who actually raise "the standard of living", if enough of these people REALize that the DOOM is a result of a specific, not an ambiguous connecting medium between those who create wealth and the legal criminals who steal it, then all those wealth creating people can, easily, very easily, sever that connection, and avoid that specific demise.
Here is the connecting medium - in score board form:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
On to the documentary - and I may return here to comment after viewing.
Comment:
I heard this:
"You can't borrow your way out of debt" and "You can't drink yourself sober".
Please know something, and this is very, very important. A person, or any number of people working cooperatively (voluntary association = free from crime), can most certainly borrow their way out of debt, and to think otherwise is very foolish.
I will offer two analogies after a short explanation concerning this "half truth" propagated by that quote (above).
The person propagating the half truth claims that a person can no more borrow their way out of debt than a person can drink themselves sober. That is true if a person fails to invest the borrowed stuff into actions that result in the production of more stuff; whereby the value, or the power, of the stuff created is greater than the value, or the power, of the stuff borrowed.
A = stuff borrowed
B = investment
A < B
Failing to recognize, realize, understand, and know the other half of this half truth is a very serious failure - please understand this much.
Analogy 1:
A group of prosperous people (voluntary association of honest productive people: free from crime) manage to survive for time span X, a number of years, or a number of centuries, never needing debt. Suddenly the weather changes and the people must work harder to gain the same standard of living because more economic power is required to deal with the severe weather - to avert famine.
These people borrow themselves into debt, to have the power to adapt to the change in weather, to dig themselves out of a dust bowl.
Then a nearby group of criminal people conduct an Aggressive War for Profit against the prosperous people who have borrowed themselves into their own debt, so as to dig themselves out of the dust bowl that a change in weather has caused.
Do these people who are being targeted as victims by perpetrators of an Aggressive War for Profit borrow even more money from themselves so as to have the power to purchase defensive military hardware, defensive military employees who must fight the defense against the Aggressive War for Profit, or do these people give up, because they can't "borrow their way out of debt"?
Analogy 2 (closer to home?)
Person A borrows money because his taxi business just spent one year in the red due to a large increase in the price of gasoline. Before the large increase in the price of gasoline Person A was "making money", now Person A is "going into debt". So person A borrows money to buy a fleet of electric cars to replace the gasoline powered cars and the savings in fuel costs is 80% on day one, and the savings in fuel costs increases to 85%, or more, as gasoline prices increase.
Now Person A has borrowed his way out of debt, because the monthly payments on the loan (plus interest = so long as interest isn't too far above cost = too expensive) are less than the monthly gains (investment) due to lowering the cost of powering the cars in the taxi business.
What happens if the cost of electricity goes up? The analogy continues with another loan, to "borrow his, or her, way out of debt" whereby the Taxi business owner buys Solar Panels and cuts down the cost of buying electricity by 5% on day one, as soon as he, or she, begins to produce his, or her, own electricity at home, or at his Taxi Business property. And, and this is a big "and", the investment pays even more as the price of electricity, from the power company, increases - for whatever reason.
There are now plenty of analogies for the reader to ponder when considering the whole truth concerning borrowing. Think, please, as to what the actual human action is, this borrowing stuff, and know that the same actions can be called credit as well as debt. Credit is the same thing as borrowing in the present time; while the future time is a process, or procession of actions, whereby the borrower earns by producing more stuff, and producing enough extra stuff to pay back the loan, and then some.
A = the stuff borrowed
B = investment process resulting in a measure of stuff
A < B
That is called an investment. If A > B, then why would someone call it an investment? Borrow stuff, work, and end up with less stuff, and then borrow more stuff, and then end up with less stuff, and then borrow more stuff, and then end up with less stuff, and do that again, and again, and again, and again, until someone, somewhere realizes, hey, this can't go on forever.
Who is the stupid one?
When will it be a good time to look in the mirror?
KNEE JERK warning:
At a point in the documentary a photo of a starving child sitting on a chair is shown and statements are made claiming that starvation can be eliminated - simply.
The KNEE JERK reaction will be something alone the lines of "overpopulation" whereby the viewer has been trained, conditioned, and modified, through propaganda to think in terms of "overpopulation" such that "if you feed them" they will "reproduce" and we are all DOOMED by "Overpopulation".
If you think that - go look in the mirror. If you don't think that, then you have not been subjected to enough false propaganda to cause that KNEE JERK reaction.
The fact is, and this can be a very accurate accounting process, or this can be less than a very accurate accounting process, and this fact will remain a fact, even if the people doing the accounting fail to account accurately: Africa, or any continent on the planet Earth, is full of very valuable natural resources (including the indigenous native people) and thereby fully capable of becoming a highly competitive example of human prosperity within the geographical boundaries of that continent. Whomever claims otherwise, it seems to me, is someone whose accounting procedures are false, on purpose, they have cooked the books.
One other point I wish to address while watching this documentary is a point concerning the legitimate (morally defensible) process of charging interest for borrowing anything, money, power, labor, anything. The legitimate reason for charging interest is such that a high risk loan, whereby the odds are that the loan will not be paid back, inspires the lender to raise the price charged to the high risk borrower, and in doing so the cost of paying for bad loans is shared by both borrower and lender.
Example:
Lender can loan X to either Person A or Person B.
Person A offers a plan that is seen by the borrower as a sure deal, no risk, and Person A happens to be a relative of the lender, someone known, someone honest, someone who always pays back every penny borrowed. How much interest does the lender charge?
Person B is an old drinking buddy, now hooked on crack, and person B shows up to borrow money for a fix. How much interest does the lender charge?
This type of thinking, this legitimate charge of interest, is the same type of thinking that inspires such things as "credit scores". The idea here is that a person earns a lower interest rate, and this is very similar to someone earning a low insurance premium - but that is a story I think I can refrain from exploring at this time.
Back to the documentary for me.