Among more liberal and open-minded communities there is more-or-less an implied consensus that banks and the bankers who run them are evil and corrupt. I have heard many people claim that they use debt to control and influence society in unfair ways.

While I consider myself to be both liberal and extremely open-minded, I fail to see the validity of many of these types of claims. I believe that financial transactions are imperative to the operation of society. Loans are needed for people to purchase necessary things that they cannot afford otherwise, such as cars, houses, and college tuition. But to motivate lenders with capital to give loans, there must be some kind of interest, or the cost of borrowing, involved.

Also, the stock market allows individuals to purchase part ownership in corporations and influence the decisions of the corporation using proxy voting. Usually each share owned of a company entitles the owner to one vote, and the results of these votes are then considered by the board of directors while making corporate policy. The stock market also allows for appreciation of wealth over time, assuming the right companies or indexes are chosen. Many people have retirement accounts invested in such products, as the money they want the money they earn now for retirement to appreciate over time.

Furthermore banks allow for the safe storage of money. It would be difficult to keep $100,000 cash in your household without feeling vulnerable, so banks give you the option to deposit it and be able to retrieve it conveniently (and after the Great Depression and New Deal this money is now insured by the Federal government up to $250,000 per account). The money and stock markets also allow other options for storage of capital.

I also find movements such as Occupy Wall St. to be fundamentally flawed because it's not like the majority of those people stopped using their credit cards or stopped taking out loans for cars/tuition to punish the financial system. They just complained about it and disrupted NYC, but they did not really use their dollars wisely which would have really been the best form of protest. But I think they did not want to give up the comforts that using their cards and loans allowed them, because in fact these things can be used to improve society.

I prefer to operate under the capitalist mantra of "if you don't like it, don't buy it." People can easily vote with their dollars, and not buying something on a mass scale is a true form of protest, especially as if enough people do it, the company will have to change their practices or will go bankrupt. So if you think the banking system is not fair in some manner, just don't use it!

I just want to see what my fellow Nexians think about this manner. I'd like to have a rational discussion rather than one fueled by emotion, but I would like to see if/where my views fall short.

My Father has been a banker for 30 years, and nowadays it really is an evil system, where before it was actually reasonable. One of the big problems is the aging of the baby boomers: all of the people with the most experience and who were around to see what worked and didn't during the last recession are leaving the industry, leaving inexperienced young adults (25 to 35 range) to run an industry they don't really understand. During the 80's and 90's the industry grew enormously, and everything was going great, money was being made - the young people getting in at that time didn't really develop skills necessary to make sound decisions and investments, but faced a huge amount of competition to get ahead. The result now is a bunch of 30 somethings who never properly learned finance in the real world trying to manage institutions that were built by their predecessors.

Another big problem I have with the industry is all the morally ambiguous and questionable practices, like the salaries and bonuses, or the endless free meals and travel expenses covered by the bank for lenders. I've seen a lot of it first hand, as growing up my dad was one of the biggest lenders in the country year after year. I used to always have to dress up in a little tuxedo for events as a little child - oh how things change! Now I'm an adult and my family is struggling to get by; the price he paid to get out of the banking industry and all it's ills has been a large reduction in income. But on the other hand, we now grow all our own food and get animals freshly killed and butchered locally raised by our relatives.

There's an interesting and exhaustive docu on money, bankers and it's history. According to the docu, the main evil is fractional-reserve banking, not money:



Bitcoins are interesting, but a huge waste of electrical power and an ecological burden imo. I'd tie the coin mining to useful computer calculations like protein folding or medicinal chemistry calculations.

Give this documentary a try.

http://www.filmsforactio...g/watch/inside_job_2010/

The banking system may not be 'intrinsically' evil, but I think it's pretty obvious that the people who run it are definitely the wrong people.

Blessings
~ND

To further concur with the above post,

Al Jazeera on Goldman Sachs:

http://www.aljazeera.com...2014613175932453607.html

I watched a lecture on Emergence and Complexity. In it, the lecturer mentioned swarm intelligence. Group think, herd mentality etc. So I wrote an email to the lecturer on his opinion, and he agreed with what I said.

I don't think the banking system is an evil, nefarious construct designed to undermine the fabric of stability for the common layperson. I think, as someone above said, that it's just run by people not suited for the job.

This is what I said in the email.

"You started talking about swarm intelligence in your Emergence and Complexity lecture. You mentioned "Swarm intelligence works better with generalists rather than specialists", correlating that with Netflix and Amazon user reviews (as opposed to "professional" critics). Both of these could be seen as beneficial to an individual. But couldn't swarm intelligence be working in a negative fashion as well? A lot of people attribute all the bad in the world as being the product of a Machiavellian archetypal Bond villain/s. Some people believe in the Illuminati or the Zionist conspiracy, essentially believing that all the bad in the world has been planned and structured from the start. These archetypal Bond villains could be seen as evil "specialists" while the average person as a "generalist", since very few individuals possess no negative attributes at all. So, the average person is familiar with negativity, but not as experienced as the Bond villain.

Could all the bad in the world be attributed to all of society's combined negativity? Could the solution to many of the world's problem be as simple as an attitude change?"

Suuuure it looks good on paper. BUT has it worked for the majority of humanity?

....no

Question where in yourself the defending of this system is coming from. I often find people defending their belief/opinions, ARE, actually defending their own CONDITIONING that was placed on them from the very forces they are defending.

Best to watch out for that.

Your own signature quotes come off as ironic after you posted this thread.

There's actually some good evidence that having money actually makes people into dicks. It's mentioned in the documentary I linked to, which includes an interview with the PI (because of this, I'm not going to bother digging up citations, it's all in the video).

Even in simulations, like monopoly, the wealthier player begins to behave in ways that are less compassionate and less empathetic, while the poorer player becomes more apologetic and deferential.

Money (and by extension, desire for worldly things) may not be the root of all evil, but it seems to contribute in it's own nefarious way.

Blessings
~ND

This is the monopoly experiment video.



The effects of winning at Monopoly and the effects of owning an actual monopoly are different. Or are they? Let's assign humanising factors to the board game. Say there are actual people who live on the properties that you own. All the houses that you built, real people live in them. Due to greed, you decide to demolish all the houses and build a luxury hotel. What about all the people? If you are in such a high position, you don't see the effects of your actions. All you see is some numbers going up and down on a screen. Numbers going up means I'm doing something good, let's continue doing what we do. This dehumanises a business. Let's remember the fact that banks are a business. So, you demolish all the houses and build a hotel. The tenants are forced to live on the street, begging for food. In the end they turn to crime to make ends meet. Suddenly, your neighbourhood isn't as reputable as it once was. The hotel starts making less and less money, eventually filing for bankruptcy. What goes around comes around. Is all of this visible to us, the players of a board game? No, all we do is roll a dice and move the little metal thing around. That's what someone in power looks like.



Moving pawns around, fully detached from the realities of their actions. Soldiers (i.e. people) are dying, tenants forced out of their homes or unwilling customers being bullied into purchasing a deal from a company. It's all the same. Detachment from our fellow humans. We are social animals. Let's act like one.

Money is not bad. Our insatiable desire for it is.



Swarm intelligence.

Do you have evidence for this, or are you just saying it? We have built our society around ideas of debt, and one could argue that debt is embedded into human morality (I believe Nietzsche argued that). How do you afford something you do not have enough money for without taking out a loan? Credit unions exist for those who do not want to work with big banks and maybe would rather support their community or fellow workers.



I question my own beliefs constantly, and this process is what motivated me to make this thread. I am going to work in finance actually, and I have had a great share of doubt about it. But when I look at my skills and at the system, I ask myself who I would rather have working in these positions of power. Me, or some monkey-jerk who only cares about his own ego and making money? I have good intentions for my work in finance and want to continue my streak of philanthropy with it.

My signature involves questioning authority and stepping out of ideology. Many times I have pondered why financial people are so powerful, and it does always come down to being the ones with their hands on the money. As has been mentioned a couple times here already, money is not intrinsically evil. But what people do to obtain it and what they do with it is oftentimes not very pleasant. And I avoid having any solid beliefs, so there is always doubt in the back of my mind, but that is more for an objectivity post than a banking/finance one.



Thanks for your perspective, and thanks everyone for the documentaries! I have seen many documentaries surrounding the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage crisis, and it really is terrible how there were such shady lending practices that deceived people into taking out loans that they shouldn't have. Like I said, I'm all for people voting with their dollars, but when there is misrepresentation, it becomes much tougher!

As detailed by Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, power corrupts people. And in our times, money is power. I can see why what you're saying is legitimate, but there are plenty of people who work in the banking industry who work very hard for their money and do participate in a great share of philanthropy.

I think in an age where our government is spending more on policing and military nonsense, it is more imperative than ever that people with large sums of wealth step up and help society. Of course this is what I'm planning to do, possibly through the funding of psychedelic studies, but I am also a big fan of direct action, such as giving meals and jackets directly to the needy. The government is not going to help these people, so in my opinion it becomes the responsibility of the wealthy to do so.

What I was looking for was why exactly banking, finance, stocks, and debt is viewed so unfavorably by so many people. Bodhisativa's post on negative swarm intelligence is very interesting, and I think it is possible that people tend to have a distrust for things they do not understand and that would kind of make sense if they were "running the world" (like the people who think that Jews run the world, or Americans, or heads of media, or bankers, etc.).

It appears that some major attitude adjustments are needed both on the parts of the bankers and the general public, but I suppose that's the case with so many of the issues we face.

"...People with large sums of money step up and help society."
Trickle down economy is a stupid and dangerous illusion.

Fact is the rich get more rich, the poor much poorer.
All these market crashes interestingly produce more profit for the 1%.

Its socialism on top of the pyramid and brutal capitalism / fascism for everybody else.
Profits are kept, looses are shared.

You just have to look at the outcome. Or in an history book.

My favorite illustration of evil banksters has always been the book 'The Creature from Jekyll Island' by G Edward Griffin.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that's the way it is. The US is not a socialist country, and regardless of any elections or anything, I don't foresee that changing any time soon. Our society has a weird, perverted way of "refreshing" itself and continually producing the means of production along with actual items, all with a tinge of wealth accumulation.

For the time being, there will be rich people. Would you rather have them help poor people or not? Is the US government realistically going to step up and help poor people, or just continue pursuing its military interests with ridiculous amounts of funding?

I just need to highlight here how you accentuated military interests. To me that's an unfinished story and just means to another end.

The greater issue is not those who are willing to help others, but those who are never satisfied. The banking industry is tinged with people who don't know what 'enough' is because their success is marked by 'more than everyone else' with no ethical guidelines as is it at the very core the the business to manipulate others out of what they have. This to me is the downfall of the concept of growth, a principle that economists don't even view as progress, but as consistency. Growth can never be maintained by all economies as the overall picture of wealth can only be taken if it is to increase. This is at odds with sustainability for all and the heart of the main problem with the finance industry.

If making money was simply a matter of producing a tangible product or service & having people buy it because they like it or need it, then I'm all for it.

However, that is not the capitalism that is in practice contemporarily. The stock market & bank lending practices create money "out of thin air", i.e. they're not creating any product or service that benefits people (sure one can argue that loans with interest benefit people, but being in debt is a real from of slavery & that is difficult to defend IMO), they simply make money without producing anything of real, tangible value. This, to me, is truly sociopathic.

You're simply creating a society of slaves & slave owners. To me, this is evil incarnate. However, it is what it is & the majority of people fall for it & buy into it every second of every day & that is their choice & their karma. I'm no judge of what others choose to do with their lives, but I do strive to be less & less participatory in the entire system with each passing day & perhaps by the time I'm 70 I'll be able to say that I don't participate in it at all. We'll see.

Peace.

If you have the time, I would watch this documentary. It highlights a lot f=of the problems with the world from an economic standpoint.

I focused mainly on military spending because I believe it is one of the more, if not the most, egregious uses of federal spending when we have so many other problems. I am all for a lean and efficient armed forces with proper leadership, but this is hard to attain, especially when corporate interests are so heavily involved.

The federal government does spend a great majority on entitlements actually, but I take major issue with food-insecure communities and homeless people when we build $1.4 trillion jet fighters with no real purpose.

I understand your point about extreme greed, but unfortunately this seems to be part of human nature. When given the opportunity to legally make profits in an unrestrained manner, people will take it.

But where do we draw the line for the acceptable amount of wealth and desire for more? I am sure that many Nexians have jobs and even support families. How much is enough for your family? Would you take a higher paycheck if offered? What if there are murky moral implications of your higher paycheck? How much is too much? How much is too little? If offered more but with moral implications, do you think you could add even more to society by donating your excess to charity?

For an answer to this, I like the study on the income limit for happiness (by state). Money supposedly doesn't really buy more happiness or opportunities for comfort or what have you after reasonable levels. So one could kind of argue that, depending on other circumstances in one's life (like debt or children) a household does not need more income than some variation on these levels to be comfortable and able to buy all the necessities of life plus a little bit extra.

But I think as a society we do actually need a certain level of inequality, at least as long as we have jobs that require masses of lower-income workers to do this. Now this opinion probably won't be taken very well here, but until we have robots to work all of our menial jobs, we still need people to do them. And if the jobs don't produce enough capital to pay the person the minimum happiness-wage, then they will have to make do with less, unless we institute some kind of basic income for all citizens provided by the government, but who's going to pay for that?

I respect how working harder allows one to earn more. But this does need to be balanced in some fashion by the government, or inequality will eventually seep into the system, as owning capital leads to accumulation.

Yes, money out of thin air without any value, that's fractional-reserve banking.


The military spending is needed to maintain the petrodollar. Don't switch to the petroeuro or your country gets bombed (iraq).


I think a spacious house at the beach and a Tesla in the garage is enough. And I'd take every paycheck I can, 1 bn USD, no problem. But I wouldn't spend it on myself, but rather buy cool stuff from it. Like a huge datacenter, computing new malaria/cancer/aids/ebola etc. medicines. Or sponsor clinical trials for psychedelics or cannabis. I think 1 bn USD isn't enough, I'd easily spend 5 on charitable causes. I think that's what's being rich is all about, give it back to society. If you don't, illness and/or the mob will get you.

There was an experiment a few years ago, and people felt happy with their life when they had about $75k to $80k of salary per year. If they earned less than that, they were unhappy with their life, and if they earned more than that, it didn't make them any happier logarithmically. So researchers found that sweet spot of "just enough" that allows people to live their lives in a way that isn't too restrictive.

Because when you meet evil you know its evil so you call it evil.

Just one question how many people lost their homes because of the banks ? One ? One hundred ? Thousand ? More for sure.

I would call banking system legal theft. That's all it is IMO.