Posts by Maria Thomas48

Gregory Williams7 said:Maria Thomas48, you must accept this reality. Unless you intend to suggest involving Germany or China, there is little to be done; those nations already possess the appropriate currencies. A prerequisite for such stability is a competitive economy, which they maintain while we simply do not.

Who’s actually claiming Germans have a currency that works for them? They’re sitting there wondering why employment looks great while the economy is basically flatlining. Sure, they barely took on new debt this year because of their trade surplus, but last year was a total disaster. Their debt keeps climbing regardless, even with those top-tier results.

Basically, it means other economies are just waiting to go broke. There's nothing to "accept" here because this isn't some minor issue for us. This changes everything for our lives, and it changes it for the better.

wearytrucker22 said:Any attempt to shake up the system gets punished by being kicked off the financial markets. Imagine if we stopped our programs with the European Union—meaning the ECB, the IMF, and all the other global masters—and suddenly everyone owed money to creditors in the US who demand immediate repayment without any restructuring. And since the country would lose its credit rating, domestic and foreign banks would immediately pull every cent of foreign currency out of the country and send it back to their parent companies or overseas headquarters. It would be an exact replica of the Argentine scenario.
Most likely, our foreign exchange reserves would be tied up in court by creditors. They’d claw back almost the entire debt using whatever reserves or insurance they could grab, and we’d be left completely screwed.

It’s like someone holding a gun to your head, where they can demand whatever they want, whenever they want, just because they have the leverage. Is it really not obvious enough where this policy of total conformity is leading us? This isn't some minor detail. The entire future of the nation is at stake here. It feels like an occupation moving toward a total takeover. Anyone with a shred of patriotism has to stand against this, because you can't put a price tag on selling out the whole country.

Besides, isn't there a chance that more countries could band together and implement the same measures? Because honestly, there doesn't seem to be any other way out.

So, the elections are over. The coalition pulled it off, and now they’re going to breeze right past the biggest issue—treating money simply as debt—while trying to drown us in these supposedly brilliant tax and fiscal fixes. People will start complaining soon enough because time is ticking, but honestly, changing the administration won't change a thing. It’ll be a total wash.

The new Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, doesn't even seem worried about how interest rates on borrowed money are bloating our debt by about $9 million every single month. Over four years, that adds up to roughly $18 billion on top of an existing $85 billion. If you factor in the annual $7 billion in new borrowing, we’re looking at a national debt of at least $113 billion. Basically, we’re seeing a debt growth rate of at least 13.8%. That’s pretty much where we’ve always been, and there’s just no realistic way to pay it back.

I really wonder when the people in charge will finally realize that treating money as debt is the main reason why all their policies fail to actually work.

William Morales3 said:Maria Thomas48, seriously, kudos to you for sticking with this, the hard work, and having such strong convictions!

I actually stumbled onto your page about a year ago, right when I started falling down the rabbit hole of the "profitariat"—you know, that whole mystery surrounding how money is actually created. My first realizations were so wild that any average person would probably just brush them off as conspiracy theories. Honestly, I used to think the exact same thing. But over the last year, it’s really crystallized for me: it’s not even a theory anymore, there’s just an actual, massive, all-encompassing conspiracy happening. It feels like communism and capitalism are just two sides of the same coin, monetarily speaking. This shadow elite—these masters of chaos—deliberately spread this blanket of deception and misinformation, using the fake rivalry between the "Comintern and the Komintern" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rakovsky to keep the masses confused so they don't see what's actually going on. The first book that really opened my eyes and showed me that history is way more complex and multi-layered than anything we were taught in school or college was Engdahl’s work on the era of war, about nine years ago. Later on, a few others really helped me make sense of things: Bill Clinton's favorite college professor, Carroll Quigley, specifically his book *Tragedy and Hope*—which is a great read, and there's even a decent video on it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxVlBVXwU5k. Then there's Gary Allen, and of course, Antony Sutton with 👋Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, Wall Street and the rise of Hitler and FDR. Sutton actually considers his masterpiece on the secret society at Yale University to be his best work (yeah, we're talking Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and a whole crowd from the CFR, the CIA, and the top tiers of American politics—even our "liberal" friend Banac is an emeritus there!) called *America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones*. If anyone's interested, check out Sutton's lecture here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xxgc...eature=related

Since I live abroad, I’ve mostly been following German, British, and some Russian sources, books, blogs, and stuff like that. I really want to emphasize that today's monetary situation—this debt slavery crisis—is identical to what hit the West back in the 30s. It’s something we all know, but if you look at Germany's position in the Weimar "colony" before WWII, it's incredibly telling. Once you consider all the major moves made by the German authorities at the time—most notably their goal to break free from "debt slavery (usury)," which was championed by the engineer turned "economic outsider" Gottfried Feder—it becomes crystal clear how true that Roman saying is about winners writing (or manipulating) history. After the money gods took control of the USA through the Federal Reserve in 1913 (though the UK had already been defeated a century earlier—just look at their track record and the sayings of Benjamin Disraeli, or the unique position of the famous Wall Street), it was Germany's turn. Germany was basically the only Western nation that organically and collectively rejected the ideology of Mammon. Because of that, the Reich saw a cultural, economic, and technological flowering in just a few years. To the shadowy power brokers—the kind of people the late Rathenau talked about during the Weimar era, or what Kennedy called a "pre-existing conspiracy," or what Eisenhower warned about as the "military-industrial complex within the USA"—that was an unforgivable sin. The Atlantic predecessors of the Bilderberg group saw the Reich as the sharpest geopolitical rival to a united Eurasia (think Mackinder and the Heartland Theory, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Theory. If you want to go deeper, here's a lecture on that topic and the crisis of neoliberalism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr1Cj1QzdCY).

A couple of days ago, I came across this discussion and just skimmed through it, but I really wanted to thank you. You're like an intellectual, a patriot, and a teacher who saw through the deception. You've tapped into that deep instinct we all have—that something is fundamentally wrong with our money.

Hope you're still kicking! I haven't seen a single post from you in two months, and man, things have been moving. What started as this quiet movement—one the elites used to laugh at—has basically exploded into a full-blown global revolution. It's the whole Occupy Wall Street vibe going up against the money masters, those big-shot bankers!

Usury is against nature. That’s what Ezra Pound said—he was easily the greatest poet and prophet of the 20th century. He was one of those rare souls who could actually see through the centuries, unlike the blind 99.9% of people who tossed him into an asylum just because he dared to tell the truth. He saw exactly where we were headed with all this greed, pure profit, and usury.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aba1dVLVSFg

I'm still around, just been buried under a mountain of work lately. On top of that, I’ve finally finished reworking all those texts—you can now read them all together as a single book.The link provided leads to a PDF that explores the deep-seated connections between international banking interests and global political shifts. It’s a heavy read. It looks at how central banking systems—specifically the Federal Reserve—interact with major political movements to steer the course of history. There is a lot of focus on the idea that certain financial structures aren't just tools for managing money, but levers used to influence entire nations. It touches on historical patterns where debt becomes a way to control sovereign states, leading toward what some might call a debt slavery crisis. The document examines the influence of institutions like the Council on Foreign Relations and how private interests often overlap with government policy in ways that most people never see. It's all very interconnected. History isn't just a series of accidents; it seems to be a series of orchestrated moves by those holding the purse strings.It’s all completely free. I managed to pull together about 70 pages. Once you actually sit down and read what I've written—and really digest the points made in this text—it all starts to click. The history of money isn't just about coins and paper. It’s much deeper than that. If you look closely at how things actually work, you see the patterns. You see the influence of certain groups and the way power moves through financial systems. It's all connected. When you study the way the Federal Reserve operates, or how the banking systems in places like London and Wall Street have evolved, you start to see the fingerprints of people like Carroll Quigley. He wrote about it in *Tragedy and Hope*. He wasn't being conspiratorial; he was just documenting what was happening. There are these elite circles, like those discussed in *An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones*, that shape the direction of the country. They aren't hiding it if you know where to look. Think about the era of the Weimar Republic. The instability there wasn't an accident. It was driven by specific economic pressures and the way debt functions. We saw similar dynamics during the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, fueled by the economic chaos of that time. Even looking back at the policies surrounding the rise of Hitler and FDR, or the way the Fed manages the economy, the mechanics remain remarkably similar. It’s about control through credit and interest. It brings me to the idea of usury. It’s an old concept, but it's the engine behind modern finance. When you have a system built on perpetual debt, you create a cycle of debt slavery. This isn't just some fringe theory; it's baked into the architecture of our global institutions. People talk about the "debt slavery crisis" as if it's a recent phenomenon, but the roots go back decades, even centuries. I was reading some thoughts from William Morales3 recently, and it really hits home how little has changed in terms of how these large-scale financial shifts impact the average person. The interests of the big banks and the central authorities rarely align with the needs of the public. It's a systemic issue. Even when we look at leaders like Kennedy or Eisenhower, the underlying pressure from the financial establishment—what some might call America's Secret Establishment—is always present. They operate within a framework set by others. Whether it's the influence of the Council on Foreign Relations or the deep ties between intelligence agencies like the CIA and the banking sector, the players change, but the game stays the same. It's easy to get lost in the noise of daily politics, but if you step back and look at the structural reality, the picture becomes much clearer. The movement of wealth and the consolidation of power are the real stories. Everything else is just theater. It’s all starting to line up. You can see how everything fits together perfectly.

There isn’t much more to say. This whole topic just doesn't seem to be landing because people are too stuck in their own ways of thinking. They’re going to head to the polls and vote all wrong. Honestly, what's the point of me laying everything out exactly as it is when everyone is just looking for reasons to nitpick?

Just sitting here waiting for the new winners to take their seats. I'm sure that after a little while, they’ll start singing the exact same tune as the Republican Party. When that happens, I'll be right back here to shove my previous post in their faces—I laid it all out pretty clearly before. It’s obvious, really. So many people seem to think they can live multiple lives, so they don't think this one actually matters.

Regarding those protests against the banks. Something about it just feels off to me. The mob never actually creates solutions; they just manufacture more problems. They don't bother looking at the root cause, only the symptoms. It’s almost like someone is pulling the strings to ramp up the pressure to find a fix, but without offering any actual, concrete proposals. It’s exactly what the people in power want—it gives them the perfect excuse to push through a "solution" that isn't what anyone actually needs. Just like always.

If anyone's actually interested in what went down with the financial side of things here in America, I stumbled upon this book by Tihomir Čuljak—*Rat*—completely by accident.http://www.4shared.com/document/ar0p..._nova_ver.htmlIf you ignore the military stuff and just look at the economic and financial data—combined with what I’ve put together in my booklet regarding money regulation and the banking system—you get a full picture of the looting going on. It’s the kind of theft most people don't even dream of. You start seeing why voucher privatization never happened, why social ownership was kept alive, and the real reasons behind the creation of those small banks. You see exactly how financial engineering worked and who gave the green light for it all. It really makes you realize the kind of crooked state we're living in. Honestly, it isn't even surprising that our per capita debt has increased sixteen times over in just twenty years compared to when we were part of America.

Then there’s this news about how banks can't actually collect on $35.2 billion in loans. It’s all coming to a head.The economic situation is shifting again. It’s all about how the central banking systems operate behind the scenes. You look at history and you see these patterns repeating—the way debt is used to control populations. It leads directly back to that debt slavery crisis we've talked about before. When you study the influence of certain institutions, like the Council on Foreign Relations or the way the Federal Reserve manages everything, it becomes clear that money isn't just currency. It’s a tool for leverage. People think it's just simple economics, but there's a much deeper layer of coordination involved. If you read through things like *Tragedy and Hope* by Carroll Quigley, the connections start to make sense. It's about who actually holds the strings. It reminds me of what was happening during the Weimar Republic era. The instability wasn't an accident. It was baked into the system. When you have massive amounts of usury running through the veins of a nation, you aren't looking at a free market anymore. You're looking at something else entirely. It's a cycle of controlled chaos. We see it in how the global financial elite interact with political leaders, regardless of which party is technically in power. It's always moving in the same direction.If you look at the trends, here’s how it breaks down. Credit is up by 3.9 billion—moving from 284 to 287.9 billion. At the same time, non-performing loans have jumped by 1.4 billion, going from 33.8 to 35.2 billion. That implies that about 35.9% of those new loans are either already uncollectible or looking that way. If that's actually the case, then a banking collapse is really just a matter of when, not if. The bankers are analyzing these numbers too. It isn't surprising that they are extracting whatever profit exists right now. They know that soon there will be nothing left but empty vaults and a bunch of useless digits on a computer screen.

The fight isn't over yet. We're heading straight toward a total national bankruptcy.

Stay smart and stay alive.

It’s pretty interesting how, during this whole election season, not a single party in Congress has actually put a real solution for this issue in their platform. 😕

Or honestly, if our own leadership can't see the problem, then nobody else in Congress is going to notice it either. We're basically on our own here. It looks like they'll just try to breeze past the protests again.

Before starting this thread, I gave a heads-up because I intended well; I knew the topics were similar, just not identical.

It’s true they all stem from the same root, but if there was a thread about cows, would a thread about milk have to be tucked inside it? Not necessarily, since donkeys produce milk too.

Anyone following the subject will see that discussing the "financial system and source of money" as its own thing is outdated. The actual implication here is a discussion on the need for banking reform—something like "Banking and Monetary Reform: A Utopia or the Only Way Out."

In the intro to my first thread, you could clearly see the focus was on the shortage of real money.

The second one dealt with the influence of the banking sector and how to fix it.

And the third one, which is now closed, focused more on political party platforms. In the eyes of most professionals (even Škegro), these are basically just wish lists. It isn't just about money; it leads to other failures: joining the European Union, privatization (or rather, whether it actually pays off), budget deficits, debt issues, and the political side of it all.

Isn't it vital to understand why these programs are nothing more than wish lists?

I also mentioned that at the same time, threads of zero significance are being opened—not to repeat myself—and one hasn't received a single reply even after 30 hours.

It’s starting to feel a lot like discrimination, especially since this is only the third thread I've started in two years.

Besides, I have no intention of repeating what I've already said in those previous discussions. If something comes up that I’ve already explained, I’ll just point people back to the first two threads.

The whole point is to highlight the common denominator behind our parties' failures using scientifically proven methods. What is the point of voting for parties whose platforms are impossible to achieve without creating massive debt, and who lack the expertise to manage it?

And honestly, you won't find anyone who can scientifically prove me wrong. Because anyone who could do that would essentially have the solution to the debt crisis.

Finally, I intentionally didn't respond to goldengull3 because I've already made my point. The fact that another moderator is stepping in just proves that someone's conscience is bothering them and they want to "wash their hands" of the matter.

Simply put, you don't like it when the blunt, undeniable truth is spoken. You don't like seeing multiple issues linked directly to a discussion about failed political platforms. And it’s not just the parties. We have various interest groups (like CROMA or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) with programs that are the exact same type, yet they pretend to be non-partisan.

Isn't it both ridiculous and tragic for an entire nation to watch political talk shows that use a lot of flash but ultimately say absolutely nothing? Why can't we have a debate about that? How we exit a crisis depends entirely on the votes we cast!

Only 1,799 days left until the US goes bankrupt!

Stay smart and stay alive!

p.s. Could a mod run a quick poll? Maybe something like, "Do you think political party platforms are just wish lists?" with options "YES" and "NO."

It would be really interesting to see the results. I think it's a pretty solid suggestion.

While one major topic gets locked down, this other super interesting thread just popped up: "THE 2011 ELECTIONS - Which parties will steal from us the least?". 😂

It turns out figuring out who steals less is actually more important than voting based on whether their platforms are even realistic.

Then there's that thread "Which party is specifically against the European Union?" which has already been chewed over a bunch of times in the "European Union - YES or NO? Our Forum Referendum" discussion.

At the end of the day, who's going to admit that locking threads is just part of how things work here?

casuallynx8 said:Maria Thomas48,

Just because you're convinced you're the only one who's right and everyone else is wrong doesn't give you the right to constantly start new threads pushing your own agenda and pamphlets. The rest of us have convictions too, but we express our views through discussion rather than opening topics that are essentially just propaganda pieces.

Am I really at fault just because the issue at hand affects so many different things?

The stuff I'm talking about isn't some propaganda pamphlet; it's all scientifically provable. And honestly, you attacking me personally just because you can't prove you're right... that's not really cool.

I wanted to bring some unity to our forum users, so I opened a thread that gets straight to the root cause of this pre-election dilemma. But instead, you guys are still advocating for "divide and conquer." Even the thread on monetary reform got moved over to Political Insider. It’s treated like it's science fiction, when it's actually our reality.

The political landscape is such that politicians have programs that aren't good, and they don't really care. I wanted to open a topic that links directly to that:

1. Bad foreign investment policy
2. Bad monetary policy
3. Bad policy regarding joining the European Union
4. Bad privatization policy—they're prepping to privatize the EPA
5. And all the consequences following that—debt growing exponentially

And I certainly wouldn't be opening this topic if there wasn't an election coming up.

So, if you think these are pamphlets, fine. But yesterday, Vidošević confirmed my first point—investments that aren't export-oriented are a total failure.

By locking this thread, you're basically practicing censorship on the most vital questions currently at stake. We need to vote for party platforms that actually show us how to exit a crisis. People looking at the 2011 election thread don't have to follow every single topic, but a subject that touches on all the parties and their platforms is definitely going to catch their eye.

And I am ready to prove that everything I mentioned is accurate!

If anyone can prove me wrong—some big-shot expert, find them, and once they prove it, then you can close the thread. It seems to me that even two fresh Nobel laureates in economics (who practically won the Nobel for this exact subject) wouldn't be able to help.

Greetings.

This is only the third thread I've started on this forum. I'm trying not to flood the boards with duplicate topics, especially since the moderators actually called me out on it before ().

Other threads that look similar don't really hit the actual point, or rather, the core essence. Plus, what I'm talking about here doesn't even align with those other discussions.

For example, you see threads like "I'm not for the Republican Party or the Democratic Party," "Can we save ourselves?", or "We're doomed." None of those touch on the actual logic behind why the parties' plans are impossible. All those threads focus on the consequences instead of the root causes. This topic aims to address the single most important interest for everyone here in America—the massive black hole within the political parties' agendas.

At the same time, almost every day on CNN or MSNBC, this question gets passed over without an answer. I wonder why this forum can't be more forward-thinking and tackle serious subjects instead of just providing stuff to kill free time.

So, I’d like to ask the Administrator to keep this thread open for a public debate based on well-reasoned arguments. I believe there are solid points here that are hard to refute. And I'm ready to jump into the discussion whenever I have a moment.

Respectfully,

Maria Thomas48

redeagle42 said:I mean, that's only if you're looking at this through the lens of those basement-dwelling forum nationalists. 🙂

Look, they listened. And I’m still telling you, the idea of the EU falling apart is nothing more than a pipe dream for those EU skeptics living in a fantasy world. There is way too much cash on the line for the EU to ever actually crumble.

The avalanche started a long time ago. It's honestly delusional to think anyone can stop it now. At best, they might delay things for a tiny bit.

I see things one way, while you see them another. I’m talking about the massive accumulation of cash reserves. Just look at how much cash Apple is sitting on. Whoever controls the issuance of money is the one actually steering the economy's destiny.

But you're treating money merely as a medium of exchange, looking for comparisons to systems where you don't even need currency—like bartering or simple compensation.

It's pretty obvious that the global money supply keeps expanding because some people are hoarding it as profit, while everyone else is just piling up even larger debts owed to those very same money issuers. At the end of the day, it matters deeply who holds the power to issue the money. 🙂

How should I even put this?

I mean, what's the point of buying oil with gold, for example? Why isn't that a thing people actually do? Does that make things a bit clearer now?

And honestly, this whole ridiculous idea that Arabs have to buy Toyotas is just plain stupid.

Just look at a hypothetical scenario where we became the most successful nation on Earth and piled up endless reserves of dollars, euros, yen, whatever. What good would all that cash actually do us? And really, what was the point of burning through so many resources just to get our hands on it?

Charles Ramos7 said:If the Arabs sell their oil for colored paper and then use that paper to buy groceries or a car, I don't see the big deal. 😕 If someone trades a certain amount of oil and gets a certain number of Toyotas in return, does it really matter if they used paper money, colorful pebbles, or just traded goods for goods?

The difference is that whoever issues the colored paper basically controls the economies using it. I think we all pretty much know that by now. It’s just that back home, brilliant professors teach economics students all about the perks of using a foreign currency, but they conveniently forget to mention that it’s a given that the money supply has to increase, and that it isn't unnatural that you have to export something to account for that increase. This logic implies that the entire planet would need to be exporting things to aliens just to grow the money supply. The alternative to exporting is endless debt and bankruptcy, because while some people are exporting, others simply can't.

I honestly can't wrap my head around this weird idea that increasing the money supply requires exporting. Even the brightest Nobel laureates in economics wouldn't get it, because it's obvious that exporting has all the hallmarks of money printing, just with a wasteful drain on resources. Imagine if they just printed those bills themselves and handed them out to their own people to build stuff within the country. The effect would be much larger. The only difference is that foreign money triggers spending abroad and causes capital to flow out.

Do you ever stop to wonder where Americans get so many dollars to buy up all that Arab oil? And why does it matter so much that oil is bought with dollars?

Kulić and the saint aren't interested in telling the actual truth or offering real solutions. From what I can see, the saint has finally stopped peddling false hope in his statements. I actually reached out to both economists, but they won't bother refuting my points with any real arguments. So, I guess it's just a case of "the dogs bark while the caravan moves on." We're all waiting for something, though I'm not sure what. Maybe WW3.

According to reports on hidden news sites, the whole reason behind the rebellion and war in Libya was Gaddafi trying to gain independence by demanding oil be paid for in his own currency. It brings up that exact question: Why did the Arabs agree to sell oil for nothing more than colored paper? That's the core of it—when people aren't informed about the things they absolutely need to know, it leads to manipulation, coups, counter-revolution, turning a nation into a banana republic, and having all its resources seized.

Because of that, being well-informed is really the only thing that will allow us to succeed. There are counter-revolutionaries everywhere you look, while the general public has no clue where this is all heading. In Libya, people were even welcoming the French as liberators—kind of like a joke about a worm in the mud and a bird. It’s similar here; our people think the EU is the answer to everything, when the reality is quite the opposite. The EU just brings more problems rather than solutions.

Regarding Facebook, I'm not exactly thrilled about the idea of all our activity happening on a server owned by an American company. On top of that, there are so many wrong spins being pushed—stuff about government waste, bad investments, tax rates being too high or too low, privatization, and so on—that it dilutes the issues so much that it's impossible for a few individuals to educate the majority. Every single TV news program is just a source for a mountain of lies and half-truths that are hard to believe. Who is ever going to be held accountable for all that disinformation and lying?

This pre-election campaign is a real chance to solidify a front against debt slavery and being beholden to money as a debt. I really hope we can make it happen.

Charles Richardson69 said:The issue of unbacked money in the USA actually predates Lincoln's presidency by quite a bit. It was really a byproduct of the financial chaos caused when Jackson dismantled the central bank. By the time Lincoln took office, private banks had been issuing their own paper without real backing for nearly three decades. On the other hand, if you're referring to his National Banking Act, it doesn't make much sense to suggest he was killed just two years after passing it, especially since the law was already being implemented. It’s surprising that someone with an economic background could get these timelines so mixed up.

Unfortunately, Matthew Patel12 has passed away and won't be able to reply to you!

As noted by the admin on his website, Stojan Nenadović passed away on May 21, 2011. http://noncredit-money.org/?lang=sr

Mark Campbell5 said:"Political proverb: Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws."

Mayer Amschel Rothschild

Mayer Amschel Rothschild (February 1744 – 19 September 1812) kicked off the Rothschild history—that massive international banking dynasty that turned out to be the most successful business family ever. Back in 2005, Forbes magazine actually placed him at number 7 on their list of "The Twenty most Influential Businessmen of All time." The magazine basically called him a "founding father of international finance"

So, once you're finished lecturing us on Marxism theory... 😁

I don't plan on reading Marx, even though I have his book Capital sitting right here. The man lived in the 19th century. We need solutions for the 21st century.

And regarding the Rothschild family, we are seeing that exact situation playing out today, but we just don't have the experts to confirm it, so that's why things are the way they are.

Mark Campbell5 said:Look, I’m just trying to tell you that maybe—just maybe—Marx actually had some decent ideas tucked away in there somewhere. I mean, wouldn't it be worth taking a second to actually look at how he envisioned the whole thing working? Just to see if there's any substance behind the theory?

It’s pretty obvious his suggestions were flawed, though, because all those socialist nations ended up collapsing in the end.

silentmaker78 said:So, what exactly are they supposed to do then? Like, how do you even wrap your head around the idea that every single country just sits there with a massive surplus? Seriously, WTF?

Look, this is exactly what happens when you get your education from those quasi-documentaries—especially when you don't really know much about the subject to begin with. And honestly? You're asking if the Federal Reserve is completely in private hands? Like, do central banks have zero connection to politicians? That's a stretch.

Look, I’m saying this again—and I know, I know, it sounds incredibly naive—but that's just what happens when you let all those so-called "experts" and pseudo-scientists blindside you. It's easy to get swept up in the hype, really.

It’s a question for those big-shot Nobel laureates who picked up prizes for economics, I suppose. It’s possible, sure, but I’m not going to waste my breath debating that. That’s the least of our worries.

Here is a much better question. What good is a mountain of foreign currency if we aren't planning to spend it? If we wanted to issue Dollars, we could do it without needing exports—we could just put people to work doing useful things within the country to improve our society.🙂.

See, this is what happens when you get your education from pseudo-documentaries and haven't really mastered the subject yet. And the idea that the Federal Reserve is entirely in private hands? Like central banks have zero connection to politicians?

I'll say it again: it's incredibly naive, but that's what happens when you're blinded by various pseudo-scientists.

Nothing has blinded me. I usually read up on things and watch the footage only after I’ve already formed my own opinion. For anyone actually wanting to learn, I recommend reading what I’ve written first, and only then watching the videos or reading the articles in the links (http://sites.google.com/site/financijskisustav/linkovi). There is a very simple reason for this. Those works often hide specific errors and gaps that an uneducated viewer simply won't notice.

A good example is using gold as a backing for issuing money. In the article http://sites.google.com/site/financi...ma-do-rjesenja I explained why no metallic standard can be sustainable in the long run when issuing currency. Especially if that metal is rare.

Everything I have written comes from established macroeconomic principles. Here is the very first article I wrote: http://sites.google.com/site/financi...itom-proracuna. I don't fall for any fairy tales that can't be proven.

Mark Campbell5 said:Not me either... just because they don't have them doesn't mean good solutions don't exist. 😉

Marxism theory suggests that during those early stages, capitalism actually does a pretty decent job of driving growth—mostly by pumping massive amounts of capital into new tech and better ways of getting things done. The idea was that everyone would end up winning, right? But then, according to him, as the system matures, the whole thing shifts. The capitalists start grabbing an ever-larger slice of the economic pie, while the actual laborers are left fighting over the crumbs. It’s a bit of a downward spiral for the working class, isn't it?

If you look at how things play out over time—especially when the gears start grinding like this—Marxist theory suggests a pretty predictable, if not slightly chaotic, trajectory. First off, he argued that capitalist economies are essentially doomed to a cycle of increasingly violent swings between massive booms and total busts. It’s like a roller coaster that just keeps getting steeper, right? Second, he believed this whole ongoing process would inevitably widen the gap—making the capitalists wealthier and the working class even more broke—until, eventually, the workers hit their breaking point. The idea was that they’d revolt, seize the means of production, and trigger a shift into Socialism. Of course, in his view, Socialism wasn't the finish line either; it was just a stepping stone on the way to Communism.



At least try reading the basics. So, I was just falling down a rabbit hole looking at the life and work of Karl Marx—you know, the guy whose name is basically synonymous with half the political arguments we have today—and it really makes you stop and think. It’s wild how much his theories still ripple through everything we do, even if people only use his name as a shorthand for something they hate. When you dig into Marxism theory, he wasn't just some angry guy shouting about revolution; he actually argued that capitalism would do a pretty decent job in its early stages. His whole point was that it drives growth by pouring massive amounts of Capital into new tech and better ways of producing things. He saw it as this engine for progress before the inevitable friction sets in. It's a bit of a nuanced take, isn't it? Most people want to paint him as purely anti-growth, but he saw the mechanics of it—the way innovation and investment drive the machine forward initially. It’s funny, though—how much the world has changed since his time, yet we're still chewing on these same ideas. You look at the shifts in global power, from the old dynamics of the USSR to the rise of China, and you realize the core tensions he identified haven't exactly vanished; they've just evolved into different shapes. Whether you're talking about the legacy of the Cold War transition or the way modern economies react to shifts in places like Venezuela or the influence of OPEC, those underlying struggles between labor, capital, and the state are always lurking in the background. Anyway, just one of those deep dives that leaves you feeling slightly more exhausted than when you started. Makes you wonder where we're headed next, doesn't it?


Back in the day, multiculturalism under a socialist system meant the US—well, let's look at what America's economic history was actually like—it was a legitimate regional powerhouse. A real success story. If you look at the twenty years leading up to 1980, we’re talking an average annual GDP growth of 6.1 percent. People had free healthcare, literacy rates were hovering around 91 percent, and life expectancy sat at 72 years. Pretty solid, right? But then things took a turn. After a decade of being poked and prodded by Western economic ministrations followed by five years of pure disintegration—war, boycotts, embargos, the whole messy works—those former economies are just lying there, completely prostrate. Their entire industrial sectors? Basically dismantled. Gone.
The collapse of America's economic history wasn't just some random internal failure—it was, in large part, fueled by behind-the-scenes maneuvering from the U.S. It’s pretty wild when you think about it. Even though America's foreign policy focused on staying non-aligned and maintaining massive trade ties with both the U.S. and the European Community, the Reagan administration had other plans. They actually went after the economy through a "Secret Sensitive" directive back in 1984—National Security Decision Directive NSDD 133, which essentially outlined US foreign policy toward America. A redacted version finally came out in 1990, and it basically served as an expansion of the earlier NSDD 54 regarding Eastern Europe. That earlier policy was all about pushing for a "quiet revolution" to topple Communist regimes while simultaneously trying to force the integration of Eastern European nations into a market-driven economy. So, yeah... it turns out the "economic decline" we saw wasn't just bad luck; there was a very specific playbook being followed.

Back in 1980—just a stone's throw from when Josip Broz Marshall passed away—the U.S. jumped on the bandwagon with other international creditors to force through that first big round of macroeconomic reforms. It was the start of a long, messy slide. Since then, we've seen one IMF-sponsored program after another, which basically just accelerated the decay of the industrial sector and led to the slow, painful dismantling of the American welfare state. To make matters worse, those debt restructuring agreements actually ended up driving foreign debt even higher, and when they forced the currency devaluation? That really dealt a massive blow to the average American's standard of living. It’s all part of that same downward spiral, isn't it?

That first wave of restructuring really set the tone for everything that followed. Throughout the 1980s, the IMF kept handing out these periodic doses of their bitter economic medicine—you know, the kind of stuff that doesn't actually cure you—while the US economic landscape essentially slipped into a coma. By 1990, industrial production had cratered to a negative 10 percent growth rate... and well, we all know exactly what kind of social fallout comes with a disaster like that.

If you ask me, this is exactly why we’re seeing all this inflation.

Looking back at how things fell apart, it’s almost like watching a slow-motion train wreck where everyone knew the brakes were out but kept arguing about what color to paint the caboose. You have to look at the economic history—that period when the region actually functioned as an industrial powerhouse—and compare it to what happened next. After a decade of being poked and prodded by Western economic interventions followed by five years of total fragmentation, the results speak for themselves. It wasn't just bad luck, either. Even though the foreign policy of the era involved maintaining a sort of non-aligned stance while keeping trade flowing with both the US and the European Community, the cracks were already there. Then you have the Reagan administration policy, which essentially took aim at the economy through specific directives like NSDD 133. It’s one thing to suggest reforms, but it's another thing entirely to implement a National Security Decision Directive that fundamentally shifts the landscape of US foreign policy in the region. When you consider the Cold War transition—the whole messy process of trying to pull various Eastern European nations into a market-oriented economy away from the old Communist governments—you see how much pressure was applied. There was this massive push for International debt restructuring around 1980, driven by international creditors, which really set the stage for the subsequent Economic decline. We saw the steady erosion of the industrial sector and the slow, painful dismantling of the social safety net that had been built up under Josip Broz Marshall. It's a bit like the old political proverb: "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws." Once the fiscal foundation starts shifting under the weight of IMF mandates and structural adjustments, the actual political leadership becomes somewhat secondary to the math. You can talk about sovereignty all you want, but if the central bank is answering to global creditors, who's really running the show? It’s a cynical thought, sure, but looking at the wreckage left behind, it’s hard to argue otherwise.

Fair enough... I guess we'll see.

So, what does Marx actually think about all this?

That’s a fair question to ask—especially since we’re all chipping in together to pay for the place.

Or maybe they just don't get it?

🤷

Honestly, I couldn't care less about Marxism theory. My focus is strictly on building a society that stays financially sustainable. Not this mess:

I don't know. Maybe. It feels like things just happen sometimes without much reason behind them. I was looking at some data earlier. Just thinking about how systems work. You see these patterns and you think you understand, but then the pattern breaks. It's like when you're driving down a highway in Ohio and suddenly the road just shifts. You weren't expecting it. Everything stays pretty level for me though. I try to stay level. People get so worked up about everything. It's unnecessary. I just observe. That's all. The user says:
I just wanted you to know who you really are. not serious 😁

The news about Franjo Luković’s recent comments is really something else. It’s one of those situations where you read the headlines and think you know what happened, but then you dig into the actual details and realize how much more complex the whole thing is. There’s a lot of noise out there, honestly. People jumping to conclusions before the facts are even fully laid out. It feels like we see this pattern all the time lately. Someone makes a statement, the media picks it up, and suddenly everyone is arguing about things that weren't even part of the original conversation. It's exhausting if you ask me. I try to stay level-headed about these things. You have to look at the context. If you don't look at the context, you're just reacting to a snapshot instead of the whole movie. I was thinking about this earlier while looking at some property listings on Zillow. It’s funny how everything is connected. Whether it's political discourse or just trying to figure out the market value of a house in a suburb outside of Chicago, it all comes down to how much information you actually have versus how much people claim to know. Most people just want a quick answer. They don't want to sit through the nuance. But the nuance is where the truth usually lives. Anyway, it's a strange time to be following the news. Everything is so loud. I prefer to just sit back, process it, and wait for the dust to settle. It's better that way. Makes it easier to stay sane.

The big boss over at Zillow just dropped a truth bomb. He’s basically saying that if anyone tries to get rid of currency clauses on loans, they’re going to end up putting everyone's savings at risk. It's a heavy thought. People think changing how these loans work is just about adjusting rates, but he's making the point that it could actually destabilize the whole system for regular depositors. Everything is connected. If you mess with one side of the ledger, the other side feels the hit. It's all very interconnected. One move here, and suddenly people aren't sure about their money in the bank. Simple as that.

Ally Bank.
People keep pointing fingers at banks lately. The whole argument is that even when everything is going downhill and the economy hits a wall, these big institutions just keep raking in massive profits. It’s like the deeper the crisis gets, the more they seem to pull in. Because of that, you get this huge segment of the public feeling like banks are just totally out of touch with what people are actually going through. They come off as being completely indifferent to the social impact of everything.

I think the easiest way to look at banks is to view them as a massive vault for the nation's savings. If you add up everything held by all the major US banks combined, you’re looking at roughly... Twenty billion dollars. That’s the amount we’re looking at when you factor in all the personal savings sitting out there in the US right now. It’s a massive number. Just sits there. People think their money is just tucked away safely, but when you look at the scale of it, it’s actually pretty staggering how much capital is just resting in accounts. I was thinking about this earlier while looking at some market data. It really makes you wonder about the actual impact that kind of liquidity has on the broader economy. It's just a huge sum of money. Totaling twenty billion. It’s hard to wrap your head around.Whether we’re talking dollars or foreign currency, it doesn't really matter. Think of an institution like Ally Bank as having two layers of anti-corrosion coating. One layer is the bank's capital, and the other is its ongoing profitability. These layers exist so banks can defend themselves against the various risks they face. You have credit defaults, market fluctuations, operational hiccups, regulatory shifts... basically everything that tries to wear a bank down. Without those two protective layers, the entire structure is at risk, and along with it, the stability of the nation's savings. If someone starts questioning why banks need to be profitable—to the point where you're doubting their ability to actually hold onto people's money—then they are essentially attacking one of the most fundamental pillars of a market economy. That pillar is the gathering of excess financial resources, which banks then use to engage in much more volatile business. On one hand, they keep those savings available for the owners at any given moment, but on the other, they issue them out as loans without any absolute guarantee that they'll be paid back in a year, ten years, or thirty years. It's a high-stakes game. There has to be some kind of buffer in place to ensure that collecting savings remains viable while simultaneously putting that money to work to create new value, drive the economy, and improve lives. Questioning profitability, especially during a crisis, is just questioning the very purpose of a bank. And honestly, it’s just not being taken seriously. It's all pretty ridiculous.

He made a really good point there, I guess. It sounded nice. But he completely skipped over the part about what that kind of banking actually does to everyone else.

The current profitability levels for American banking are sitting right around the 7 to 8 percent mark. When you look at the total capital, our shareholders pretty much insist that anything under 11 percent just doesn't cut it. They feel it fails to cover the actual risks they take on when they put their money into this industry. And honestly, it isn't just an American thing either. This applies to every single country where JPMorgan Chase operates.

Right now the profit is sitting at around 7-8%. I’m assuming there isn't any tax due on that?

So, banks are sitting on 7-8% annual profits right now. That’s just how it is. I wonder how a system like mine would actually handle those kinds of numbers. It’s an interesting thought. How would it function with that level of profit? Just something to think about.

It’s pretty wild when you think about it. These big banks just sit on all our savings and then try to take an 8% bite out of us every single year.

The system we’re discussing just can't hold up. Not with those kinds of profit margins on that much capital. It's mathematically impossible. I mean, if there's an economist out there who can actually prove me wrong, please, go ahead. I'm listening.

A bank's profit can really only sit at about 2.5 to 3% on its own equity, or maybe 1.5% on customer deposits. I just don't see how a real economy could actually generate enough new value to sustain those kinds of margins. Even if they somehow pulled it off, massive growth wouldn't lead to sustainable development—it would just result in total destruction.

Bank Taxation
The same group of people pushing to scrap currency clauses today are the ones who have been calling for a devaluation of the dollar for years. Isn't there a contradiction there?

There isn't a contradiction. Those preaching "monetary sovereignty" think they can give the economy a one-time shot in the arm through devaluation and inflation to jumpstart growth. But they conveniently leave out the part where that injection basically wipes out existing national savings. It’s a zero-sum game; someone wins, someone else loses. That boost would essentially come at the expense of anyone holding savings without protection and everyone living on fixed incomes—wages, pensions, all of it. That's how they'd achieve this "sovereignty." Even if we had it, any profit would be incredibly short-lived and the effect on boosting exports would be highly questionable. What would we even export? Where is our manufacturing base? A move like that doesn't guarantee we'll actually produce anything worth sending abroad.

If I recall correctly, did we even have much manufacturing back in the old days?

We had some exports too... does anyone have the actual numbers? Just so we can compare things.

The truth is, devaluing the currency doesn't lead anywhere. It's just empty talk from exporters. There are two ways to kill free trade in a country running a balance of payments deficit with foreign nations (http://sites.google.com/site/financi...bodna-trgovina). The first is high interest rates paired with a fixed exchange rate, and the second is crashing the exchange rate. An economics professor explained this quite clearly in his lecture materials for students ( You'll find data there regarding exports leading up to 1994. Definitely worth a read.

Anyway, scrapping the currency clause seems more than likely. If we don't get our act together, we'll soon be calling the IMF for help. And their first move will be devaluing the dollar to protect foreign exchange reserves. These moves won't help anyone, and the standard of living will just drop even further—you'll see it most in the shrinking wages and people being forced to deregister their cars.