Posts by Maria Thomas48

I don't know. It feels like things are just moving in one direction lately. Everything seems very set in stone, almost. You look at the way people talk about the economy or the way the banks operate, and there’s this sense that the decisions were made a long time ago. It’s hard to argue with the momentum. Some people try to fight it, but it's like trying to stop a freight train with your bare hands. You just watch it go by. I've been thinking about it a lot. Just watching. Not sure what to make of it all yet. Just observing. says:
Maybe you should do a little more digging. Honestly, if you look at the data, the economic models that actually delivered the best results were the ones used back during the socialist era.

I've never been a huge fan of socialist economic models, at least not the kind they used back in the South. Capitalism has its merits, honestly, but the whole system feels broken because of how money is regulated. It’s all being pushed through by the big bankers. That’s really where the root of the problem lies.

What would be best for us right now? Just my own two cents, anyway.

It’s pretty obvious at this point. When you’re running a massive trade deficit like this and constantly taking out loans just to cover the gap, there’s no way we’re ever going to see any real progress. It's just not happening. We’re basically living a life that's way beyond our means.

Question....

If the banks are state-run and all that profit just flows back to the government—which basically means it belongs to everyone—then there's a weird logic to it. When inflation hits, we all lose together because the state loses too. But while things are moving forward and growing? That’s when everybody wins.

So, what I'm hearing is that we all share in the losses and the gains together? Everyone? Is that how it works?

Currency doesn't just inflate for no reason. There's always a cause behind it. I actually laid out all the specific reasons for inflation in my article. Inflation is just one of those things that keeps creeping up on you. You look at the numbers, then you look at your wallet, and there’s a gap there. It’s hard to ignore. I was looking through some data recently about how much things have actually gone up, and it really hits home when you realize how much less a hundred bucks buys you today compared to a few years back. It feels like everything from groceries to gas is just constantly shifting upward. People talk about it like it's this abstract economic concept, but it's more practical than that. It's just the reality of the cost of living right now. It stays steady, then it jumps, and you're just left trying to adjust your budget on the fly. It’s a lot to manage. Just something to think about when you're planning out the month. It really just boils down to two things: greed and necessity. Without any kind of scientific approach to managing it, we ended up stuck with currency inflation.

Who actually carries the weight of the losses in this current setup, and who's the one walking away with all the profit?

The answer to that is in the article. I was reading through some stuff online about carbon emissions and how they impact our economy, and honestly, it’s a lot to wrap your head around. There's this whole conversation going on about how we need to shift toward greener energy without basically tanking the entire industrial sector. It's complicated. You look at the numbers and you realize that moving away from traditional fuel sources isn't just a simple switch you flip overnight. It’s a massive structural overhaul. The way I see it, there’s a tension between meeting these big environmental goals and making sure companies can actually stay profitable. If the regulations get too heavy, too fast, you end up with higher costs for everything—basically everything. Then you have these huge energy conglomerates, like ExxonMobil, trying to navigate this transition while still keeping the lights on for everyone else. It feels like a balancing act that nobody has quite figured out yet. It’s easy to be idealistic about zero emissions, but when you start looking at the logistics of the power grid and the supply chains involved, the reality is much messier. We talk about these targets like they're set in stone, but the actual implementation is where things get bumpy. I think we need to be more realistic about the pace of change. We want a cleaner planet, obviously, but we also need an economy that doesn't collapse under the weight of sudden, massive shifts in regulation. It's all very interconnected. Just something I've been thinking about lately.You could honestly just pull up a basic spreadsheet and prove that banks aren't actually getting hit by inflation. It doesn't make sense. They are the literal source of the money. When you look at cumulative inflation, it basically forces debt to climb higher than the total money supply because they have to inject even more debt just to keep enough cash circulating. It’s all right there in the numbers. Unpaid debt just keeps snowballing. It’s basically an endless loop where you're stacking the inflation rate right on top of whatever interest the bank is charging you. It just builds and builds. There’s a fact here that I just can’t wrap my head around, and honestly, even the most seasoned Wall Street economists would probably struggle to make sense of it.

I’ve honestly never heard of Sojana Nenadovic before. Maybe take a look at his ideas and see if there’s anything actually worth grabbing? Since you have those mathematical models running now, you could probably just plug them in and run them through a few cycles right away.

The late Stojan Nenadović was a lawyer who, back in the 1980s, put together this master's thesis about non-credit money—the title is a bit of a mouthful, honestly—and his page is... I was looking at this site earlier today. It’s about non-credit money. I don't know. There isn't much there. It feels like one of those things you stumble upon when you're just browsing around late at night. It doesn't say much. It's pretty sparse. You look at it and you wonder what the actual point is. Just some information floating out there in the digital void. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's just... there.His theory basically boils down to differential cash compensation as a way to offset savings. I actually ended up at the exact same conclusion on my own, just by starting with the assumption that you have to cover costs over the long haul.

Can we ask The Wolf of Wall Street to join us? I think he could actually help...

The Wolf of Wall Street actually started this thread, and his party is pushing for the exact kind of banking reform we’re discussing right now. The proposal to take over banks through fictitious recapitalization—just to stabilize things and bump up government ownership to 50%—is perfectly legal if you change the laws. It doesn't mess with current private ownership; it just creates a significant additional stake for the government.

We ought to build a system designed to cause fewer long-term tremors. From what I can see, we might have enough economic muscle to pull out of this recession, but if the decline keeps happening....

The government can only gain true economic strength by establishing a monetary pillar of power based on issuing sovereign currency and implementing measures to balance the trade deficit.

I don't think there's any need to convince people... I feel like everyone knows something has to change, it's just a matter of what...

I disagree. I think we do. There are just so many false theories being pushed in the media, it's honestly terrifying to hear. You hear it from politicians, unions, economists, and even regular folks. Because of that, reforms in banking and creating a monetary pillar of authority won't be understood at all. Nobody promotes it except here on this forum and a few niche websites. And it's pretty absurd that people who aren't economically literate are leading the charge on our only financial solution, while professors and PhDs just collect their academic paychecks every month and write useless books.

Just pay off the banks... everything was fine before state ownership anyway (let's just return everything to state ownership) and then everyone would be happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Fzm1hEiDQ

We can take over the banks using the method I laid out. To make sure history doesn't repeat itself, profits from lending money have to be limited. If that's not profitable for anyone else, then let the government handle it.

The more problems we anticipate now, the easier it will be later.... basically, start gathering your wits. 😁

So many people who claim to know economics are still sabotaging every good solution. Take someone like Ben Bernanke, for example. Maybe we'll have to rely on the younger generation, the ones with slightly less experience.

silentmaker78 said:You're always bringing up the trade deficit like it's the end of the world. How exactly did you imagine every single country maintains a surplus all the time? It doesn't work like that.

But honestly, the massive flaw in your whole theory is that, eventually, this just turns into printing money to buy votes and keep politicians in power. Your idea is pretty naive—when you're designing a system, you actually have to account for the shady characters who will be running it.

This whole issue regarding international exchange is being swept under the rug in the name of free trade. I see a massive problem here, but maybe I'm missing something? You tell me. A permanent deficit just isn't sustainable if we keep trying to fund it by piling on more debt. We have to find another way to handle this. Something else has to be the answer.

The biggest issue with your idea is that, at the end of the day, it just turns into printing money to buy votes and stay in power. It’s a naive way to look at things. When you're actually building a system, you have to account for how people behave. You can't ignore the nature of the players involved.

People keep blurring the lines between political leaders and monetary authority. It’s a mistake. Monetary power needs to be independent. It shouldn't be dancing to whatever tune some politician decides to play. Does anyone honestly think politicians are calling the shots at the Federal Reserve right now? No. They aren't. So why would anyone assume that’s going to change down the road? It just doesn't make sense.

Mark Campbell5 said:I get how the system you're proposing actually works.

If you ask me, that kind of system—well, at least a version of it—was actually still hanging around in America from the end of the war right up until 1980. I’ve got some data floating around in my head suggesting the IMF stepped in back in 1980, and honestly, that seems to be the exact moment everything started shifting. You know how it goes—once those external players get involved, the whole landscape begins to change.

There’s an article floating around online about this:

The shape of things to come... it’s a heavy thought, isn't it? I can't help but look at where we are now and wonder if we're just watching a slow-motion replay of history. You know, the kind of stuff that makes you sit back, pour a drink, and realize that everything we thought was permanent—our industries, our social safety nets, even the way we think about money—is actually incredibly fragile. It reminds me of how the United States was once a regional industrial Power and economic success, but after a decade of western economic ministrations and five years of disintegration, the landscape shifted under our feet forever. It wasn't an overnight collapse, either—it was more like a slow erosion. We saw this pattern play out when Washington's other International creditors stepped in, imposing a First round of macroeconomic reform in 1980, and honestly, it feels like we haven't truly recovered from those shifts since. Since then, we've seen a continued disintegration of the industrial sector and the piecemeal dismantling of the welfare state. It's like we're constantly stripping away the layers of what used to hold everything together. Is anyone else feeling that? Or am I just being overly cynical here? Maybe it's a bit of both. We talk about progress, but sometimes it feels like we're just rearranging the deck chairs on a ship that's already lost its engines. When you look at the way policy moves—how decisions made in high-level rooms eventually trickle down to affect the guy working the assembly line or the family trying to navigate a changing economy—it becomes clear that nothing is accidental. Everything is connected. And if we don't start looking at the bigger picture, well, we might find ourselves staring at a future we didn't actually vote for.

Look, let’s be real for a second—multi-ethnic, socialist America was once a regional industrial Power and economic success. Seriously. If you look back at the twenty years leading up to 1980, things were actually moving in the right direction—annual GDP growth was averaging around 6.1 percent. And it wasn't just about the numbers on a spreadsheet, either. Medical care was free, the literacy rate was sitting right around 91 percent, and life expectancy had climbed to 72 years. It’s easy to forget how much ground was actually covered back then, isn't it? But honestly, after a decade of those Western economic ministrations and five long years of total disintegration—not to mention the wars, the boycotts, and those crushing embargoes—the economies of the former America are basically lying face down in the dirt, their entire industrial sectors just completely dismantled. It's a mess, really.
Part of why the United States was once a regional industrial Power and economic success—only to fall apart—comes down to some pretty shady U.S. maneuvering behind the scenes. It’s wild when you think about it. Even though Washington's non-alignment and its extensive trading relations with The European Community and The U. S. made them look like a stable partner, the Reagan administration targeted The American Economy in a " Secret Sensitive National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133), "United States Policy toward America." We only really got the full picture later, once a censored version was declassified back in 1990. It turns out that document was basically just an expansion of NSDD 54 regarding Eastern Europe, which had been issued in 1982. That earlier directive was essentially pushing for "expanded efforts to promote a 'quiet revolution' to overthrow Communist governments and parties" all while reintegrating The countries of Eastern Europe into a market-oriented Economy. So, yeah—it wasn't exactly an accident that things went south.

Back in 1980—just a stone's throw away from when Marshall Marshall passed—the U.S. actually jumped on board with Washington's other International creditors in imposing a First round of macroeconomic reform. It’s one of those moments that really sets the stage for everything that followed, isn't it? Since then, those endless rounds of IMF-sponsored programs have basically just fueled the steady decay of our industrial base—it’s been less of a recovery and more like a slow-motion dismantling of the whole American welfare state. To make matters worse, every time they signed one of those debt restructuring deals, the foreign debt just ballooned higher. Throw in that forced currency devaluation they made us undergo, and you can see why the average American's standard of living took such a massive, painful hit. It wasn't exactly a smooth transition, was it?

That first wave of restructuring basically set the stage for everything that followed. Throughout the 1980s, the IMF just kept handing out more and more doses of their bitter economic medicine—periodically, at least—while the American economy slowly slipped into a deep coma. By 1990, industrial production had cratered to a negative 10 percent growth rate... which, honestly, makes all the predictable social fallout pretty easy to see in hindsight, doesn't it?

So, what are the actual parallels here when you look back at the economic system of the United States before 1980? It’s an interesting question—one that makes you wonder if we're just circling the drain of history. You have to remember, the United States was once a regional industrial Power and economic success, but after a decade of western economic ministrations and five years of disintegration, things started looking a lot different. I mean, think about it—how much can really change when you start pulling at the threads of a massive, established structure? Even back then, despite Washington's non-alignment and its extensive trading relations with The European Community and The U.S., there were these underlying shifts happening under the surface. It wasn't just sudden; it was a slow burn. Then you have the political maneuvering—like how the Reagan administration targeted The American Economy in a "Secret Sensitive National Security Decision Directive," specifically NSDD 133. When you look at United States Policy toward America versus how we handle domestic policy today, you see those same patterns of interventionism. It’s all connected to how the government tries to steer the ship, even when the engine is already smoking. And let's not forget the role of international pressure. We saw Washington's other International creditors in imposing a First round of macroeconomic reform in 1980, which set off a chain reaction. Since then, it seems we've only seen a continuation of the disintegration of the industrial sector and the piecemeal dismantling of the welfare state. It feels like a loop, doesn't it? One minute you're riding high on industrial might, and the next, you're dealing with the fallout of decades of shifting priorities and structural decay. Is anyone actually surprised? Probably not, but we ask anyway.

So, what's actually the difference here?

And does the system you’re proposing even have the capacity for hyperinflation?

So, what now? What’s the move?

So, what kind of mess am I seeing on the horizon? Honestly, where do you even start? It feels like we’re just staring at a massive, tangled knot of issues that keeps getting tighter every single day—it's almost impressive if it weren't so exhausting. I mean, look at the trajectory we've been on. We’ve spent decades watching the slow erosion of the middle class and the steady dismantling of the social safety nets that used to actually hold things together—you know, that whole "piecemeal dismantling" process we've been dealing with for a long time now. When you strip away the stability of the industrial sector and leave people out in the cold, you aren't just creating "economic shifts"—you're creating a powder keg. And don't even get me started on the political fragmentation. We see these cycles of intense polarization where nobody can agree on basic facts, let alone how to fix the plumbing of the country. Is it just me, or does it feel like we're constantly reacting to the latest crisis instead of actually building anything meant to last? We're basically playing a permanent game of Whac-A-Mole with our own economy and social fabric. The real headache? It's the compounding effect. One failure leads to another, and before you know it, the structural integrity of everything—from our local communities to the national economy—is being tested in ways we haven't seen in generations. Can we actually pivot, or are we just too busy arguing about the symptoms to address the actual disease? That's the question that keeps me up, anyway.

I'm no expert on socialist economics, so I can only really offer my own perspective here, just looking at things from the outside.

There’s a bit of a parallel here, I guess. It’s just that back then, we weren't taking out foreign loans for the sake of it. We did it because we had to—to cover the costs of importing essential goods. We also had higher tariffs in place to protect our domestic manufacturing from being undercut by cheap imports. Plus, we didn't have the massive weight of debt repayment hanging over us, which kept production costs much lower.

The thing is, back then, we were already operating under a fractional reserve system. It’s just that the banks were state-owned, so all those profits stayed right there within the government. Because of how that whole banking structure functioned, inflation was basically an inevitability for our currency.

Another thing people miss is that back then, there wasn't really a legitimate economic science regarding money. The way they issued money and handled the budget in the old SFRY days just wasn't based on any exact theory. It was just how things were done. During those years, Stojan Nenadović actually tried to pitch his own theory about non-credit money. He didn't succeed, though. His math was solid, I'll give him that, but he failed to account for the actual social consequences. He didn't flesh out how it would impact real people.

And does the system you’re proposing actually leave any room for hyperinflation to take hold?

So, what happens now? What’s the next move?

If these reform goals actually work out—you know, banning all private money creation and expansion, leaving the government as the sole entity capable of issuing currency—then hyperinflation becomes an impossibility. That’s the theory. But honestly, look at how things work. Just because a country maintains a standing military doesn't mean you're safe from a military coup. It's the same deal with monetary authority. Having that central power doesn't magically guarantee nobody will abuse it. Nothing in this world is ever 100% certain.

So, what kind of trouble do you think we're looking at down the road? I mean, if you really sit back and look at the trajectory of things, there are definitely some hurdles ahead. It’s hard to say for sure, but you have to wonder about the long-term stability. Everything feels a bit uncertain lately. You know, just thinking about where all this leads... it's a lot to process. There are always going to be complications. Just my two cents.

The biggest hurdle is really just convincing people that we have to stop treating money creation like it’s just adding more debt to the pile. When you start building out this whole new monetary pillar, there's always a risk of leaving a loophole in the laws—kind of like how certain gaps exist in our Constitution—that could end up paving the way for everything to slide right back to the old ways.

Another thing is that moving toward... It’s just reality. Simple as that. The financial Constitution and these proposed cuts to banking revenue—specifically targeting the margins on lending—are going to be a massive uphill battle. It’s not going to go down easy. We also have to deal with the existing national debt and that whole deficit issue regarding foreign exchange reserves. Honestly, I don't see any other way around it. I can't even imagine an alternative.

The third thing is that people just expect their paychecks to go up. It’s a straight-up economic question, really. Like, can we actually buy more stuff with the same amount of money if productivity increases? Or should wage growth be tied directly to how much we're producing? It's all about whether those two things move together.

The fourth thing is that when wages are actually stable, we have to create a way for people to finally close out their financial obligations. There are plenty of ways to tackle this, but honestly, there are just as many ways to mess it up. We really need some bright minds on this one.

Of course there are issues here. This isn't just about tweaking some tax rate. We need to build an entirely sustainable financial system for the whole country. It’s almost more of a mathematical puzzle than a standard economic one, if you think about it.

The biggest hurdle is that our academic circles—specifically the economists—just won't do the actual work. Instead, they keep selling complete nonsense to students and the general public.

I don't know. It feels like we’re just circling the drain sometimes. You look at the way things are moving, especially with the economy and how much everything costs now, and it’s hard not to feel a bit unsettled. People talk about big changes coming, but I think they miss the point. It isn't always about some massive explosion or a sudden crash. Sometimes it's just a slow, steady shift that you don't notice until you're already standing in a different place. I was reading some stuff online earlier—just scrolling through, nothing special—and it reminded me of how much noise there is out there. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone thinks they have the secret formula. But honestly? Most of it is just static. It's easy to get caught up in the panic, but I try to stay level-headed. If you react to every single headline, you're going to burn out before the year is even halfway over. It’s like when you’re watching a game and everyone is screaming at the TV, but you’re just sitting there thinking, "Well, this is what happens when you play this way." It's predictable if you actually look at the patterns instead of just the score. We should probably be looking at the long-term trends more. The short-term stuff is mostly just distraction. Just my two cents. Not that anyone asked. kaže:
I'm with you on that.

That’s exactly why we’re having this conversation. It’s pretty obvious that if we keep running things this way, the whole system is headed straight for a cliff.

The whole point of everything we do should be finding the actual root cause of a problem. We can't just keep running around like headless chickens. So many politicians—and honestly, a lot of regular people too—seem to think that money regulations don't need to change at all. They act like the issue lies somewhere else entirely.

Everything happening lately just keeps proving my point. You can't fix the nation's finances or actually get the economy back on its feet without tackling banking reform head-on. We need to look at how money is issued too. If we don't address that, we're just creating more debt. It’s pretty straightforward.

And what kind of system should we actually put in place?

🤔

Does the one you’re suggesting actually have flaws?
Could something like this actually happen again in maybe 10 or 20 years? I can't stop thinking about it. It feels like one of those things that just stays in the back of your mind. Just wondering if history repeats itself like that.

I might be repeating myself here, but I’ll say it again anyway. You don't get to a solution by just guessing. It takes actual math and some real thinking about how to make something truly sustainable in the long run. These are the most important facts in all of this:

The amount of goods and services moving through the country is going up. I'm talking about durable goods specifically. It’s happening.
A job isn't actually profitable if it doesn't generate a cash profit. That's just how it works. You can talk about "fulfillment" or "experience" all you want, but at the end of the day, if the math doesn't show a surplus of money coming in, you aren't running a business. You're just paying to work. It’s pretty straightforward. Real profit is liquid. If there's no actual cash left over after everything is paid, then the whole concept of profitability is just an illusion. It's basic economics.
Only the government should be allowed to print money. Private individuals shouldn't have that kind of power. It just doesn't make sense. Money supply belongs to the state alone.
If we actually know exactly how much we're putting in, then it’s pretty obvious that money is just going to end up sitting in someone else's savings account sooner or later. It’s just math. Simple as that.
The income from lending shouldn't ever exceed what we can actually print. It’s basic math. Honestly, it would be even better if that figure stayed under 50% of the total money supply. That way, we don't end up stuck in some kind of debt slavery. It just makes sense to keep things balanced.
Lending money or any other private financial dealings shouldn't look like actual currency issuance. You can't have those things increasing the total money supply. If they do, the government loses its grip on how much money is actually out there. It’s pretty straightforward when you think about it.
Price hikes that have absolutely nothing to do with rising costs basically just devalue the currency. It’s pretty straightforward. We need actual measures to stop this kind of price gouging—something we should already be doing. Those famous profit maximization models, where companies just keep cranking up prices until sales finally start to dip? Those aren't just business strategies. They are essentially inflation engines. It’s just a way to shift costs onto everyone else.
We really need to get a handle on this current account deficit with our foreign partners. It’s becoming a serious issue because the way we're handling it right now—basically just stacking up more and more debt to cover the gap—is just not sustainable. We have to find a way to fix the balance before the debt gets out of control.
You can't just freeze people in place whenever they aren't useful to the system. It doesn't work that way. Everyone who is capable and able should be contributing. Aside from retirees, kids, and people with disabilities, everyone else needs to be able to cover their own costs. And honestly, many of them should be able to save some money, too.

This whole non-credit issuance system is just a natural way to replace money. It essentially forms through savings, which is backed up by the fact that new value is constantly being created.

The problem with the current system is that this whole crowd of useless finance guys—the ones making massive bank just by renting out money—is going to lose their grip on that lucrative business model of economic enslavement. You can call it a revolution if you want, but honestly, I don't see any other way to make things work. In the long run, they always end up covering their own costs. And honestly, some people can actually manage to save money too. I posted that little challenge on my page a while back. The concept of nominal fallacies is one of those things that people just don't grasp. It’s easy to look at numbers on a screen and think you’re getting ahead, but if you aren't accounting for the actual value, you're basically walking in circles. I was reading through some old notes on this, and it really hits home how much the average person gets tripped up by simple math. It's about the difference between what something costs and what it actually represents in terms of purchasing power. People see their bank balance go up and they feel rich. They don't realize that if inflation is eating away at the dollar faster than they're earning it, they're actually losing ground. It’s a quiet kind of loss. Very subtle. Most people won't notice until it's too late. I remember talking about this with The Breakfast Club once. We were diving into how certain economic indicators can be totally misleading if you don't apply a bit of skepticism. You have to look past the surface level. If you only focus on the nominal amount, you're missing the entire picture. It's like looking at the speedometer when you should be looking at the GPS. One tells you how fast you're moving, but the other tells you where you're actually going. Anyway, it’s worth thinking about. Really worth it. Don't let the raw numbers fool you into a false sense of security. Real wealth isn't about the number of zeros in your account; it's about what those zeros can actually buy you in the real world. Just an observation. Simple, but true. Look at task one down at the bottom of the page. That's the real goal here. Whatever system we end up designing, it has to be able to actually solve that specific problem. If we get this right, we won't find ourselves falling back into that cycle of debt slavery again. We have to make sure the framework holds up.

And don't forget, we're looking at the total collapse of the entire global system here. You really have to account for those massive global pressures...
🤷

Well, it is what it is. Every kind of liberation comes with a price tag. There just isn't an alternative right now. The main thing is realizing we're all basically enslaved by debt, and we need to find a way to break free from it.

If you think I missed a point somewhere, I'm open to talking about it.

The most important thing to notice is how our politicians over in D.C. still have absolutely no clue what’s actually happening. They're just playing pretend while leading us deeper into this massive hole of national debt. Most people have finally realized there is no real center, no true left or right—it's just a bunch of collaborators and opportunists. Honestly, the current opposition is already busy carving up political offices for themselves, yet they don't have a single actual plan to liberate us from this cycle of debt slavery.

David Anderson49 said:Look, let’s just lay all the cards on the table here:
1) Most of the massive corporations and major banks in the US are foreign-owned. They basically set the tempo, bleeding Americans dry and forcing us into this whole master-servant dynamic where the owners can just do whatever they want with us.
2) More and more Americans are losing their livelihoods, and honestly, our unemployment rates are looking pretty abysmal compared to our neighbors.
3) The government’s social safety net? It’s practically non-existent. The laws are a joke—for example, you’ve got small business owners struggling to stay afloat who end up paying for childcare$33 just because they reported minimum wage, while someone making way less might actually get some help$167 simply because they’re playing by the rules. Basically, a crooked system ends up rewarding the people trying to cheat it.
4) Mortality rates are climbing fast because there’s zero support—or maybe just incredibly weak incentives—for young families, pregnant women, or anyone trying to buy a home. We don't even see basic things like a flexible day off for working moms with two kids, which is totally standard in places like Sweden.
5) Corruption and crime are everywhere, especially when you look at boardrooms and the leadership tiers of the biggest companies and political parties.

So, if you ask me, I’m predicting the US will soon become a place where the quality of life drops down to levels similar to Bulgaria (which, let’s face it, would be a new low for us). You’ll have most Americans stuck doing menial labor, while those who actually have decent jobs either won't get paid enough to survive or will just pack up and leave the country in droves. (By the way, in just the last year, more of my friends have moved abroad than the total number of people who left in the previous five years combined). Of course, there’ll always be a tiny sliver of Americans living like they’re in Switzerland or Sweden, but the gap between them and everyone else is only going to widen—kind of like the extreme wealth disparity you see in Ukraine or Russia.

And things are only going to get worse. My whole point, and I have the evidence to back it up, is that the core issue is how banks create money out of debt, which is essentially driving us all toward a cliff. No amount of adjusting interest rates or tweaking terms is ever going to pull us out of this hole. We need a total overhaul of the banking system—it needs to function as a public utility for the country, not as some gatekeeper deciding who lives and who dies.

Christian Clark2 said:Instead of playing around with these childish banking models, why don't we just flip the entire business model on its head?
Everything else is just a byproduct of that foundation anyway, so once you fix the core, everything else will just fall into place and adapt itself.

The opportunism we've seen over the last 20 years has basically driven us straight into massive debt and the fire sale of our national assets. Honestly, I don't think there's any room left for that kind of opportunistic thinking if we ever want to see actual progress.

silentmaker78 said:Look, American economic science does pretty much the same thing as the rest of the world—it just kind of wanders around aimlessly, throwing out a hundred different theories and half-baked ideas about how things "should" be done. Economics isn't exactly an exact science, you know?

Honestly, it’d worry me way more if all our economists actually agreed on something 😁.

And this whole idea that money supply needs to chase GDP growth? Doesn't sit right with me. It’s perfectly natural for prices to drop—that's just what happens when things get more efficient. When that happens, everyone holding cash wins because their money actually buys more stuff than it did yesterday.

Check out this paper if you want to go down the rabbit hole: http://www.econ.umn.edu/~kehoe/papers/AKaer2004.pdf.

If I'm noticing anything, if you can't reach a solution, people just say there isn't a good theory, right. Meaning, nobody knows.

The idea that money needs to track output growth doesn't seem right to me.

There is one thing that disproves that. It’s the monetary profit coming out of every single production cycle. That is part of the turnover that gets pulled out of circulation, which creates savings. Money needs to be added in exactly the amount that gets converted into profit. If more products are produced during that process, then naturally their prices will drop. But if you don't add money, all we have left is savings. But how do you generate profit from savings if you aren't adding money into the system? Where is the profit on a loan going to come from? The person who builds savings based on them can drain the remaining free money through interest, and that's how the whole system crashes. So, a system without monetary expansion is basically doomed.

This issue usually shows up as a decrease in money circulation. Since GDP is essentially the product of the money supply and its velocity, any drop in the speed of circulation leads to a drop in GDP. Because of that, restrictive monetary policy leads straight to falling production and crisis. You can find more on this topic on the pages of the late George Washington: http://noncredit-money.org/?cat=31&lang=sr

silentmaker78 said:The documentaries by Bill Clinton, MasterClass, Crime and Punishment, and The Wizard of Oz—they all dive into our monetary system and how it’s built on fractional reserve banking. They cover a specific slice of history quite well, I'll give them that. But the massive issue with these films is that they offer what amounts to a fake solution—or honestly, no solution at all. Their "fix" usually involves ditching the current fiat system only to swap it out for a different version of the exact same thing. The whole idea is to strip power away from the bankers, stop them from conjuring money out of thin air, and hand that authority over to "good, honest politicians." Personally? I think it's incredibly naive to believe you can trust a politician any more than you trust a banker. Just because we get to vote for politicians and we don't vote for bankers doesn't mean they're trustworthy—I mean, even Adolf Hitler won his elections. These same politicians are the ones who gave the banks this monopoly in the first place. It works perfectly for them because they profit immensely from the setup, so they just keep putting their own interests ahead of the public good, day in and day out. Politicians love spending way more than the country actually earns by cutting taxes and creating this hidden tax we call inflation. Then they turn around and pass laws that strip away our freedoms under the guise of fighting terrorism, crime, or drugs (you know, those laws that restrict internet freedom are almost always branded as "protecting kids from pornography"). It’s just crazy to base a total monetary reform on the assumption that politicians will suddenly become wise and incorruptible. The problem with money being created out of nothing isn't about *who* is doing the creating—it's about the fact that it's being created that way at all.

The answer to the fiat problem isn't more fiat; it's moving toward real money backed by tangible assets. Historically, gold and silver have been the best players for that role. Maybe tomorrow people decide they want something else entirely, but the point is, we should at least have the freedom to choose.

Those precious metals have always been—and always will be—universal stores of value. Bankers and politicians can't easily mess with their worth. Actually, bankers *want* to own gold because it protects the wealth they've amassed by sitting right at the injection points of the money supply. They hate a system based on precious metals because it stops them from cranking up their earnings. Their bread and butter is interest on loans. If you use real money, the money supply is limited by the actual amount of gold and silver in their vaults. But if banks have the power to create money out of thin air, they can lend and collect interest essentially forever.

Maria Thomas48, you're basically chasing a utopian fantasy. You want a society where everyone has exactly what they need, and you've decided the banking conspiracy is the main roadblock. There's some truth there, sure, but it's not the core issue. The reality is we simply aren't wealthy enough for everyone to be living large. Plus, like a true socialist, you seem convinced that the state will make the right calls if led by wise, unbribable leaders—so your solution is to give them even *more* power. But wait, they're the ones who handed the bankers this leverage to begin with! You claim my good fortune is someone else's misfortune, but in the system you're proposing, the sheer amount of misery would actually skyrocket, and you're too blind to see it. You've got this idealized vision of the world, but you lack the data and the perspective to see things realistically or offer a solution that actually moves us forward. And honestly, maybe nobody can, because the world and society are way too messy and complex to be boiled down to a few simple variables. The current system is broken, and you're great at spotting the cracks, but in my humble opinion, your proposed fix is even worse.

So, behind all your charts and sketches, there's this simple, looping logic: take the power to create money out of thin air away from the bankers and give it to the politicians (the same ones who gave it to the bankers), and then somehow, magically, the politicians will be wiser and more selfless, and everything will be perfect. My luck won't depend on someone else's bad break anymore.
It's a dangerous illusion built on pure ignorance.

I think we're all on the same page here. It feels like certain interest groups always try to put themselves front and center, but they end up doing it at everyone else's expense. It’s frustrating. In my view, the golden rule for any kind of community or shared life should just be "live and let live." You can't have one person's freedom stepping all over someone else's. That shouldn't be complicated. Freedom for one person shouldn't come at the cost of someone else's liberty. Simple as that.

When you look at all the different ways we could go about regulating money, I honestly can't wrap my head around a worse solution than this one. It just doesn't make sense.

Politicians just love spending more than the government actually brings in through tax revenue. It’s a cycle. They run up the deficit, and then they create this whole other hidden tax called inflation. It’s basically happening right now.

That’s true enough, I guess, but there is one massive caveat here. What exactly is our economic science even doing? Can we actually trust these academic types—who can't even agree among themselves, even when they claim to be intellectuals or patriots—that the current economic policy is flawed and needs a total overhaul? Doesn't that bother you guys?

It’s just crazy to build an entire monetary reform on the assumption that politicians are actually going to be wise or uncorruptible. That's not how it works. The real issue with printing money out of thin air isn't really about who is pulling the lever. It's deeper than that. The way things are being built from the ground up... it’s just fundamentally flawed. The whole process itself is broken..

I can sort of see where they're coming from with that bolded part. The whole process is just fundamentally broken. We really need to draw a hard line between actually creating value and just borrowing against it. Basically, we should ban any kind of financial maneuvering that acts like it’s printing money out of thin air. That kind of control belongs strictly to the federal government.

Fixing the whole fiat money mess isn't going to happen by just printing more fiat. It’s not working. We need real money. I mean actual, tangible assets that you can point to. Historically, we've always seen gold and silver play that role best. They work. Maybe tomorrow people decide they want something else entirely. That's fine. The important thing is having the freedom to make that choice.

I think that's a completely wrong assumption. We just can't tie money to some other material asset for one very simple reason. Every single time you create something new, there really ought to be a mirror image happening on the other side—something like building up a solid metal foundation to balance it all out. Doesn't it seem a little economically irrational to have an entire industry dedicated solely to manufacturing the metal substrate for currency? I mean, it feels like it’s pushing the limits of common sense.

Banks don't want a system built on precious metals. It’s pretty simple, really. If we move toward that, they lose their edge. Their whole business model relies on interest rates from loans. That's the core of it. If you actually use real money, then the total money supply is tied directly to the amount of gold and silver sitting in their vaults. But if banks have the power to just create money out of thin air? Then they can lend and collect interest indefinitely. There's no limit to it like that.

Look, you're completely missing the point here. First, just go find out who actually owns the majority of the gold mines. Then, look at who holds the most physical gold in their vaults.

A gold standard is really just a way to make the money supply finite so that whoever holds the reins can maintain total control. Plus, if the amount of cash is limited, it becomes much easier to dictate interest rates however they want. We see it all the time now—different political leaders basically crawling to The Wolf of Wall Street on their knees, begging them to drop interest rates just so they can look good to voters. 😕

Maria Thomas48, you’re essentially chasing a utopian fantasy. You want a society where everyone gets exactly what they need, and you think the banking system is the main thing standing in the way. There’s some truth there, I guess, but it isn’t the core issue... You claim that my current luck is just someone else's misfortune. In the system you're proposing, the amount of misery would actually skyrocket, but you're too blind to see that. The current system definitely has plenty of flaws, and you're great at spotting some of them, but honestly, your proposed solution looks even worse to me.

I’m not here to hand out final solutions. We’re all here to figure out what works best for us. For starters, I never said the money supply should be handed directly to politicians; I said it should belong to the state. And the state is made up of several branches: the Political, the Judicial, and the Monetary. How did you conclude that I was suggesting we hand monetary power over to politicians?

Politicians are the ones making the laws, and they might accidentally make a mistake that subordinates monetary power to political interests. But since we are supposedly getting close to a solution, it would be incredibly stupid to hand over the highest authority in the land—the one our very lives depend on—to someone like, say, Elon Musk.

A nation's monetary power is on the same level as its territorial sovereignty. Fighting to reclaim monetary power is actually more important than fighting for territory. Without control over our own money, the country will just fall apart. Someone like Milton Friedman talked about this plenty of times.

I wish you could understand that monetary power isn't just a function you can delegate to someone else without facing massive consequences. Calling it "utopian" to demand that monetary power return to the domain of the state is shortsighted and, frankly, borderline treasonous. I won't get bogged down in the political background, but try to realize that every credit issued that inflates the money supply relative to actual cash represents a direct loss to the country we live in. Someone created the money we use today, and they are profiting from it. It's simple. Someone acted like a parasite, sucking the value out of the entire nation just to line their own pockets using money that doesn't even truly exist.

Do you still believe the US shouldn't reclaim its monetary sovereignty and rebuild it based on scientific principles? This power wouldn't sit with politicians; it would sit with actual experts. These professionals would, if necessary, guarantee everything they own—even their lives—to ensure they perform this duty for the good of the American people. Look at China; those who betray the state for private interests end up facing execution. There are no excuses here. All of our fates depend on the foundations of the economy—the monetary authority. Its job should also include protecting the domestic economy from predatory foreign pricing. You can't run a separate monetary policy while simultaneously running a tariff policy.
A dedicated team of experts—not these pseudo-experts who can't even predict basic economic trends—must lead the monetary policy, regulating the money supply, customs barriers, banking operations, and the financial markets. The sooner we grasp this, the sooner we escape economic slavery.

Just separating how money is created from how it gets lent out isn't some magic fix, and it definitely isn't an answer to just handing the keys of money printing over to politicians. The actual solution is way more complicated than that, but you can't dodge it if we want to survive. We have to start by accepting that the current state of The Wolf of Wall Street is driving us all toward a total collapse, even though a real way out actually exists.

And I should probably add this too. We aren't going to reach our target standard of living just by printing our own currency. We can only achieve what our actual capacity allows. That depends on things like how hard we work, having a solid strategy for investing in vital goals, boosting manufacturing productivity, building up our own domestic industries, and all that stuff.

Standard stuff
-------------------
1. managing business accounts
2. handling personal accounts
3. lending money from savings
4. currency exchange booths

Things that aren't actually banking
--------------------------------------
1. Creating money

If you take the Federal Reserve and combine it with every single commercial bank into one giant entity, you end up with a corporation that just conjures money out of thin air. They lend it out and build their entire profit model on that. To keep people from noticing the scam through massive inflation—since the debt always outweighs the actual cash issued—they have to choke the economy with restrictive monetary policies. It’s how they hide the fact that costs are outpacing the supply.

Most of the money circulating in accounts is just credit. Real physical cash is mostly sitting there as required reserves, with only a tiny fraction kept in a bank vault. There's basically no way to pay interest on almost all the money in circulation because any new money being introduced is created as debt itself. There isn't a real source for this money. Everything is just credit, except for those tiny bits of interest on the reserve funds, which the bank ends up pocketing anyway.

silentmaker78 said:Look, I’m not saying we should just cling to the status quo like it’s some holy relic, but I am definitely not arguing that the government needs a bigger seat at the economic table. If we go down that road, things are just going to get messier—we'll end up with even more corrupt politicians holding way too much leverage, and when they start playing with that kind of power, the damage to everyone else is going to be massive.

At the end of the day, any amount of cash works as long as it functions as a medium of exchange. Prices for everything you buy or do just shift to match whatever the money supply looks like.
We really need to scale back how much the state interferes in the economy and just get those politicians to stop digging their hands into our hard-earned cash.

The current mess is exactly what happened when politicians tweaked the laws to basically turn us into economic slaves. What we all really need to push for is separating money creation from lending once and for all. We should probably write that directly into the Constitution.

Any amount of money works as long as it serves as a medium of exchange. Prices for goods and services just adjust based on how much money is out there.

A lot of people argue that point, too. I might be speaking out of ignorance here, but that logic falls apart easily because it assumes the supply of goods stays constant. You have to consider the first factor, which is the increasing quantity of goods. Then there's population growth. Third is the existence of cash profits—savings. Fourth is the deflationary issue, which leads straight into a recession. And so on.

Quote:We need to shrink the government's role in the economy and get politicians' hands off our hard-earned money. There is no such thing as "hard-earned money." That money is just someone else's even larger debt. You should look at the laws governing currency, like the Federal Reserve statutes. Your good fortune is just someone else's misfortune. Every bank acts as a middleman making fools out of us. And when we eventually get tangled up in a debt crisis, those same bankers are the ones proposing solutions that don't actually work (Silicon Valley).😂

silentmaker78 said:

Maria Thomas48 I didn't catch what was said—it looks like you missed the actual message there. Drop the text and I'll get to work on it.
Yeah, sure, why not? Just turn your brain off, put it on cruise control, and take everything everyone says at face value. It’s a great plan—really. Honestly, just look around at how things actually work in the real world and try to make sense of it for once.

So, you guys are doing the exact same thing—you’re just swapping out your info for different flavors of nonsense. You're leaning on stuff like Engdahl, those Money Masters types, or that whole "The Secret of Oz" rabbit hole... which, let's be honest, aren't exactly gold standards. Most of that stuff has been thoroughly torn apart and debunked by people who actually know what they're talking about, usually with some pretty heavy-hitting arguments.

Look, we’ve already established that your whole model is basically just a massive oversimplification—it's clearly been rigged from the jump to fit whatever thesis you're trying to push. I mean, sure, the math might technically hold up on paper, but there's this glaring, obvious lack of understanding here regarding what a mathematical proof actually represents versus what an actual model is supposed to be. It's all just... well, it's missing the point entirely.
I mean, honestly... it’s kind of hard to take someone seriously when they think they can map out the entire global economy just by messing around with a few Excel spreadsheets. It’s a bit much, don't you think?

The whole concept that the government should just print whatever amount of money they think we "need" is honestly pretty bizarre—especially when you look at history and see exactly what happens once the state takes over such a massive, critical role in the economy. I mean, really? The notion that some bureaucrats could actually pinpoint the exact right amount of cash required, combined with the wildly naive assumption that politicians will stay uncorrupted and perfect... it’s almost laughable. We really ought to be aiming for a system that doesn't have these kinds of massive, single points of failure.

Yeah, okay. Someone’s out there claiming that’s not true, and now we’re all just repeating it like parrots. I really feel like I already suggested this: read my articles first—which weren't even based on those videos, by the way—and then, only after you've finished those, go watch the videos and the other pieces. If you actually followed that order, you’d see right away if any potential denials even hold water or not. But instead, everyone's just switching their brains off.

We’ve already established that your model is way too oversimplified. It feels like it was basically engineered just to fit your own theories. Sure, mathematically speaking, it might hold up on paper, but there’s clearly a misunderstanding here about what a mathematical proof actually is and what a model even represents in the first place.
It’s just hard to take someone seriously when they think they can map out the entire world using nothing but a few Excel spreadsheets.

Budget spreadsheets don't lie. That’s why I rely on them. Even the last idiot out there can grab a calculator and verify that every single step is accurate. Look, I'm not trying to build some grand economic theory here. I am just explaining how they pull off this fraud by pumping money into the system solely through credit.

Doesn't it strike you all that everything I’ve written lines up perfectly with the current reality? It explains most of these economic headaches and exactly why the Government's measures just aren't working. I wasn't out here guessing anything. I just ran the numbers and calculated that there simply isn't any way for a country like America to maintain financial stability under these conditions.

The whole idea that the government should just print whatever amount of money they think is necessary is honestly bizarre. History has already shown us exactly what happens when the state takes on such a massive, critical role in the economy. Thinking that politicians can actually determine the "correct" amount of money needed—and assuming they’ll be incorruptible or perfect at it—is incredibly naive. We really ought to be striving for a system that doesn't have these kinds of single points of failure.

So, what you're saying is that because politicians can be bought, we should just stick with this entire system that was built on bribing them in the first place. That's your argument.

I really don't get who brainwashed everyone into thinking the government shouldn't play a key role in the economy. It’s wild. Even Keynes proved that things actually work when there's state initiative involved. He just messed it up because the whole setup was built on this foundation of debt-based money. He had to have known that.

Anyone who actually believes an economy can run like some standard corporation managed by the government is just plain wrong. If a government doesn't issue its own money, it’s basically at the mercy of whoever does. You end up completely dependent on someone else's currency—specifically, on whoever holds the actual power over money creation. This addiction isn't your run-of-the-mill kind of thing because there’s this specific relationship at play here. And honestly, it’s more than just twisted. The Government can't just print cash out of thin air, but they can issue paper promising they'll pay back even more than what was originally lent. The logic is just completely insane: how does that operation actually multiply enough money to cover those repayments? Through new loans? We’ve already seen that when banks multiply money, they aren't creating actual wealth; they're just creating fake deposits. So, if a bank takes whatever tiny percentage of profit they make from a loan and tries to use it to grow their capital, it becomes impossible to pay back the debt. Interest keeps piling up on top of that debt, and it's really just a matter of time before everything sinks under a mountain of debt that far outweighs the value of all the assets.

Just look back at how they framed the narrative: "We aren't overleveraged, so we have plenty of room to invest in growth." Once I actually saw the repayment figures, I knew right then this was headed for a crash.

The very first question you have to ask when trying to build a sustainable system is: Where does the money actually come from to cover retained earnings ?

So, I’d really love for the big defenders of this credit-based system to explain it to the average person: Where does the actual profit for every single firm and bank come from—the part that is pure, liquid cash available for payout?

Think about it. I start a business with $1,000 (created out of thin air, somehow) and where does the profit originate? Let's say there are 7 billion people, each with $1,000 in capital, and everyone jumps into a business to grow that capital. Everyone works hard and stays productive. Let's pretend they are all under one almighty entity, like the United States.

I want a concrete answer on how everyone creates real, profitable cash flow indefinitely—like people saving money under their mattresses—to reach this supposed capitalist nirvana.

You can make your economic models as complicated as you want, but it's all just a way to show that—there, right there—that's where the money multiplies.

I think we need to talk about how banking itself needs to change. We should be turning the financial system into a service for society, rather than letting it act as this arbiter of life and death just because people don't understand how it works. Basically, the way our banking laws and the Federal Reserve operate creates a kind of economic servitude to money.

I've actually felt this fight against bank pricing personally. The Federal Reserve basically gives banks a free pass to do whatever they want under the guise of "business policy." It’s constant—overcharging on fees, billing you for services that don't even exist, or hitting you with massive penalties just for trying to pay off a loan early.

Harold Nelson6 said:Exactly—it’s completely irrelevant what the actual assets are; it’s much "better" to assume they are smaller just to get a more sensationalized return on assets figure.

There's no wordplay here—I'm just looking at your claims from a different angle.

So, we have unrealistic deposits being put into the bank, but the interest on those unrealistic deposits is somehow real? Brilliant. 😁

My bad—I was being too vague there. But regardless, both mandatory reserves and those "ordinary" reserves are tied up under orders from the Federal Reserve.

Citing Engdahl as a serious source... honestly, what can I even say to that?

Anyway, it's an interesting read when I have the time, but I really don't have the energy for endless debates—so, let's just leave it at that. This conversation ends here for me. 😁

Yeah, sure. It's probably best to just turn your brain off and take everyone's word for it. Just look at some real-world examples and see how that works out.

There's an impossible task here: Try to model a financial system (imports vs. exports) involving any number of actors—a nation, the Central Bank, and a bank expanding the money supply via the Federal Reserve Board—and prove that this system remains sustainable year after year. Prove it can actually prosper if any of them are making a profit (because the whole point of capitalism is capital growth). An Excel spreadsheet would be best. Let me know once you've solved it! 😂

Carl Foster8 said:@ Maria Thomas48
Maybe you should try comparing those earnings to the primary money supply.

It would be like if you could sell an apple ten times, but every single time you resell it at a higher price than what you paid for it—basically just playing with the interest rate spread.

If you're interested, I can try to clear things up a bit. We all have some basic idea of how fractional reserve banking works, but nobody really knows all the fine details. To dig deeper, I pulled up an Excel sheet and ran some numbers on money production based on that fractional reserve principle. I made sure to factor in interest payments on issued loans, too. My main goal was just to see if I could estimate the actual quantitative impact on the money supply.

The money being discussed here as an initial deposit can come from just about anywhere. It doesn't matter. The government could issue it by taking on debt abroad and then converting that into US dollars through various means. Or someone could invest it because exports are outperforming imports. Even the primary issuance from the Federal Reserve, like when they provide credits to a bank, counts. It all flows into the system somehow.

So, here’s how the whole fractional reserve banking thing actually shakes out in the end. You take real money, and most of it just gets sucked into mandatory reserve deposits. A good chunk of it turns into pure bank profit, and a tiny little slice ends up sitting there as a treasury reserve. But on the flip side? You suddenly end up with this massive mountain of deposits that basically have zero coverage—we're talking like 2% at most. That's just how it works.

When banks tweak interest rates, they’re basically just adjusting how much profit they squeeze out of that initial deposit. But here is the reality: whether those deposits go up or down, they're still only ever backed by a measly 2% reserve. It's just how it works. If you actually wanted to kill off monetary multiplication in a system like this, the only way would be to jack that reserve requirement up to 50%. If that happened, the system would essentially turn most deposits into mandatory reserves, and you wouldn't be able to issue more in loans than what was originally deposited in the first place.

The only real way forward for the country is for the government to issue money in exactly the amount that’s actually needed. Right now, banks just print whatever they want based on their own interests, and we need to stop them from creating this parallel money supply. It's a huge deal if we want to actually stabilize the value of our currency. If we take away the ability to create money from the banks, things change. Debts could finally be paid off—provided the banks' earnings don't outpace what the government brings in—and then financial crises and those constant business cycles would just become things of the past. The state shouldn't have to issue bonds just to manufacture money. They should just do it directly. But instead, they're stuck issuing debt to pay back even more money to the very banks that control the money supply. It's all structured as debt. Honestly, it feels like a law was written specifically to cheat the entire nation.

Harold Nelson6 said:For crying out loud—you can't just redefine standard industry terms to suit your own vocabulary; you're just creating confusion. And honestly, this "asset" concept of yours doesn't actually explain anything—it's just a made-up term that leaves us right where we started.

If we assume all those deposits—aside from the very first one—are "unreal," then every cent of interest the bank earned (except for that first bit) is also "unreal." In other words, the bankers effectively scammed themselves with their own system... 😁

The same goes for the bank; they have to pay interest on all those other deposits just like they do on the first one. Does interest on savings only exist for the person who provided the original deposit? And who, exactly, provided that original deposit? Someone back in ancient Mesopotamia?

You’ve rigged the setup to make it look like banks have exponential profit growth, but once someone points out your math is based on flawed assumptions, you pivot to saying everything except bank profits is unreal. How convenient... 😁

Look, I can actually agree with your critique of fractional reserve banking, but I definitely can't get behind the conspiracy theory that the whole system is designed specifically to impoverish everyone.

Look, reserves aren't just free cash sitting around—it’s money tied up at the Federal Reserve, and you can't touch it until that loan is paid back.

There's no scam here—that's just fractional reserve banking. And I won't bother commenting on those links, since I assume you can find plenty of debunking videos for them on Google.

P.S. No need for the formal tone with me—it's standard practice on this forum to keep things casual. Besides, I'm probably younger than you, so let's just stick to being friendly.

I don't really care about standard terminology when things need to be clear to the average citizen. It doesn't matter if a bank considers something an asset or not. It doesn't change the math. You have the entire article on bank profits right there. I specified which column is which in the introduction. Plus, there are comments in the Excel sheet.

If we assume all those deposits, except for the very first one, are 'unreal,' then all the interest the bank earned, except for that first bit, is also 'unreal.' In other words, the bankers have just swindled themselves with their own system... 😁

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with these word games. The bank's earnings are real because they are paid out from the initial deposit. Bank profit cannot exceed the initial deposit minus the required reserve. If it did, loan repayment would become impossible.

Likewise, the bank has to pay interest on all those other deposits, just like the first one. So does interest on savings not exist for anyone except the person who provided the original deposit? And who actually provided that original deposit anyway? Someone back in ancient Mesopotamia?

Interest on deposits isn't even relevant here. I've already explained that. It’s just a portion of the bank's earnings and is insignificant in the total amount. You could account for deposit interest by simply reducing the bank's interest income by that amount. Of course, that wouldn't include any of the bank's operating costs. That's not part of this calculation at all. This calculation is strictly about the principle of money creation and how the bank generates profit. No operational costs can change the fundamental effects of money creation and interest on that business.

You've framed the settings however you want to show that banks have exponential profit growth, and when it's shown that your profit calculation is based on incorrect assumptions, you claim everything except bank profits is unreal. How convenient... 😁

Anyway, you're criticizing fractional reserve banking here, and I might even agree with you on that, but I can't get behind the conspiracy theory that the whole system is designed to impoverish everyone.

I didn't frame anything. These are just facts, and you all have the opportunity to prove with your own math that this is sustainable.

Reserves aren't just free money. It's capital tied up in an account at the Federal Reserve, and you can't touch it until the loan is paid back.

It seems there is a misunderstanding regarding the difference between general reserves and required reserves. Required reserves sit in a specific account; they are a portion of deposits. General reserves are simply the cash part of deposits held by a bank to maintain liquidity for Treasury needs. If people don't realize this, a good chunk of what banks call profit was actually just kept as reserves instead of being paid out.

There's no scam here, it's just fractional reserve banking. And I won't bother commenting on those links because I assume anyone can find a debunking of them on Google.

Well, you certainly have interesting perspectives. These links aren't just bedtime stories for kids. Most of them are documentaries that require some serious concentration to follow. But honestly, watching films alone won't explain everything, because even the movies leave things out. That is exactly why I wrote a whole series of articles based on pure mathematics to explain things in a very straightforward way. You can find the mentioned links here: http://sites.google.com/site/financijskisustav/linkovi. All of this is verified content that avoids conspiracy theories or hunting for imaginary villains.

If you are truly interested in understanding how the entire system functions, start with my modest writings: http://sites.google.com/site/financi...ma-do-rjesenja and then move on to others. Finally, watch the films (links) and read the other texts (in English). It would also be a good idea to read William F. Engdahl's "Century War". It describes how modern history unfolded when viewed through the lens of banking interests. It is essential reading. No theories, just facts and reality.

Only after you have gone through all that literature should you come back and apologize for these sweeping generalizations.

P.S. There's no need to be so formal with me. It's standard etiquette on this forum to use first names. I'm likely younger than you anyway, so the formality feels unnecessary.

I can't go wrong using formal address, and it's much harder for me to say anything rude to someone when I am being polite. My suggestion? Try it, and you will see how communication culture immediately drops by 100%.

I don't know. Just feels like things are moving in a certain direction. It’s hard to pin down exactly why, but you can sense it. Some people get loud about it, others just watch. I tend to just sit back and observe the patterns. Everything is interconnected, really. If you look closely enough at the data, the conclusion starts to make itself. It isn't about being right or wrong, it's just about seeing what's actually there. Most people miss it because they're too busy reacting. I prefer to stay steady. Just watching the pieces fall into place. Maria Thomas48 says:
Maria Thomas48

Regarding that spreadsheet of yours:

Your asset calculations are off throughout this entire spreadsheet. I mean, right from the jump, they can't possibly equal zero, because that would imply the bank is operating with negative equity. As you move through the rest of the table, you’re consistently underestimating total assets. You aren't accounting for the cash required for mandatory reserves, the vault holdings, or the accumulated interest income sitting in there. Once you actually nail down the asset numbers, you'll see that the return on assets is going to be a bit lower than what your sheet is showing.

Maybe I’m not using the exact same jargon as the guys at JP Morgan Chase, but in my book, an asset is simply whatever I’ve put out there as a loan that actually brings money back in.

In that "earnings/cash inflow" column, you’re just calculating the cumulative interest based on that initial $1,000 deposit. That isn't really how it works. You said it yourself—you’re adding a new deposit at the end of every cycle. To get an actual, accurate number for the earnings versus cash flow, you have to take the "bank earnings" column and divide it by the "total deposits" column. If you do that, the percentage drops significantly. Once you look at it that way, there’s no such thing as exponential growth.

Only the initial deposit is actually realistic, and honestly, that’s where the bank makes its money too.😁Bank profits have to be paid out in actual, cold hard cash, right? That’s exactly why we saw all those aggressive commercials pushing people to deposit their money into the bank in the first place—it’s just so the banks actually have enough liquid cash on hand to cover their own earnings. I mean, if you didn't realize that, you really ought to go back to basics. Anyway, that little cartoon section on the small diagram there is just showing the profit margins relative to the total loans issued.

I’m still not quite following what you're trying to get at with that "free cash" column. I mean, isn't that basically the whole point of reserve requirements? A bank takes a deposit, they can't just loop it into infinite loans forever. That's how the system is set up to work, right?

It’s true that mandatory reserves act as a brake on endless credit expansion, but you have to look at it this way: free money is really just whatever is held as a reserve and hasn't been pumped out as a loan yet. We started with a solid base of cash, and from that, we ended up with 3.4 times more in total credit, while only about 2%—or roughly 9.1% of that initial deposit—actually exists as physical cash circulating in the economy.😕 This whole setup can’t keep going without a fresh injection of cash. Just look back at when JP Morgan Chase had to be recapitalized. That's exactly why central banks exist—to create money out of thin air. I mean, did it even occur to anyone to ask where my first $1,000 actually came from? Any interest you earn is exponential because if you can't pay off the interest every year, it just gets tacked onto the principal. Take a look at this chart:
Just take a look at this. I saw this article earlier today. It was pretty interesting, honestly. Just one of those pieces that sticks with you because of how it lays everything out. I don't know, it felt different from the usual stuff you see floating around online. It’s worth a look if you have some downtime..

Look, I’ve set aside some actual time to go through your spreadsheet, and honestly, I’d appreciate it if you could just keep your replies short and direct. And please, let's skip the whole thing about Masons, conspiracy theories, or accusing me of being a Satanist or some big-shot banker. Just stick to the facts. 🙂

I’m actually glad you took the time to look at this simulation. It shows how the banking system manipulates cash flow in a country where the government doesn't even issue its own currency, but instead leaves that power entirely in the hands of private banks.

It should be pretty obvious now that when banks expand the money supply just to collect interest on it, it’s nothing more than a scam. That’s basically why I wrote my piece regarding corruption. If you can't see how bankers are essentially conspiring against the state and the people after seeing this, then I really don't know what else would convince you. Maybe check out these videos:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXb-LrVkuwM - "The Money Masters" - This is an excellent video from 1996. There are 22 parts, about 9 minutes each, covering the history of money and banking scams throughout America and Europe, and the specific steps needed for reform. Definitely worth a watch.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHTv4eriZ8U - "The Secret of Oz" - A great video about the flawed monetary regulations that bankers have been pushing on us for centuries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S0ru...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkmU5Q9MtQg

I also forgot to mention that the diagram in the simulation hits a wall once there isn't enough free money left to issue credit. In the real world, that's exactly when a debt crisis kicks in because there's no way to pay back those loans—money has to be created somehow, usually through even more new credit. I hope that part didn't get lost in the discussion about how much profit the banks are making.

Elizabeth Harris11 said:Honestly, I feel like people treat the monetary multiplier theory way too loosely—they cling to it like a drunk clings to a lamp post. Everyone loves talking about how it creates positive growth, but they completely ignore the fact that it can actually work in reverse. Plus, nobody ever brings up the crucial role of maturity matching. Let’s be real: nobody takes out a 30-year mortgage just to leave that exact same amount sitting in a savings account for the full 30 years.
When people don't understand how banking actually works, they end up making those tired claims that banks just conjure money out of thin air. That is a total myth. No bank has assets that exceed its liabilities; they are always deploying funds gathered from deposits, loans, or, to a lesser extent, their own capital.
On top of that, banks can tap into the interbank money market where the Federal Reserve plays a role, but we're talking about short-term loans here—you can't just roll those over forever. For instance, looking at the US market, there hasn't been any real creation of extra money through the banking system since February of last year (and even then, that wasn't "new" money created by the Federal Reserve; it was really just swapping one asset class for another—essentially trading bonds and Treasury bills for liquid cash).

I have a question. From what I can see, I get regular hits on my website from various Banks across the US, so I have a feeling some of you might be directly involved in the banking business.

It’s interesting how easily you dismiss deposit multiplication when it’s taught as standard textbook economics.

The fact that the Federal Reserve doesn't provide classic loans to banks (because that's just the law) isn't just true, it's something worth thinking about. It makes the Federal Reserve look more and more like a common currency exchange.

We aren't getting into the weeds of banking operations here. We are dealing with economic principles that you can't just brush off with fairy tales.

Here is a little calculation:



This calculation comes from an idea to estimate potential bank earnings and the fallout. Every real banker keeps this kind of math in mind. This is a simulation of constant credit growth. Let's say the starting deposit is 1,000. To keep credit growing constantly, a loan has to be taken, then deposited again in shorter and shorter intervals, and then used for another loan. In this scenario, we assume interest must be paid on issued loans. I didn't factor in interest paid on deposits, but you could offset that with lower bank rates. After all, deposit interest is part of the bank's total interest, which can also be viewed as profit shared with depositors.

This is a pretty realistic situation. It shows a bank can redirect 30% of the cash inflow (your savings) over a 2.5-year period into interest earnings (not counting costs or deposit interest). However, there will end up being multiple times more money that interest is applied to. On the small chart, you can see that earnings grow exponentially over time (until they hit a ceiling because there's no more free money left). The money left over is only 9% of the initial deposit, and compared to book deposits, it's only 2% (the bank's reserve). Basically, if a bank maxes out its deposits to issue loans, it has a negligible amount of actual cash in the vault relative to total deposits. See, money from mandatory reserves can only be withdrawn when loans are repaid. And loan repayment is a huge question mark. You have to pay back more than the original amount to cover the bank's profit. That means either money runs out, or the bank has to operate without making a profit. And if they don't make a profit, they shouldn't be paying out dividends or interest on deposits.

So, I honestly have no clue what you were actually trying to pull with that post. Were you just trying to look uninformed? Or maybe you're out here defending the banking industry like it’s some kind of noble, honest business?🤷

The bottom line is this: even if the Bank's profit—which is 7.3% of total deposits—wasn't paid out but instead moved straight into reserves, it wouldn't fix the liquidity issue. That deposit reserve would only sit at 9.3%.😕 This is a reality check for anyone pushing the idea that government ownership of banks is the magic solution. Regardless of who owns them, this entire money-creation model is unsustainable in the long run. It’s basically a scam, and there isn't any way to justify it.

Jerry Williams41 said:Maria Thomas48, look, the only way you actually stop the money printing machine is if you have a 100% reserve, so I’m just sitting here wondering what kind of math you’re using to claim that a 50% reserve somehow achieves that same result.

It’s all about perspective. Having a 50% deposit requirement is effectively the same thing as having 100% credit.

I put together a table here that simulates constant credit growth over time. You achieve this by shortening the deposit intervals, which causes the amount of issued credit to drop.

The small diagram shows how bank profits grow relative to the actual amount of cash brought in. The larger diagram tracks the loans—that's the money being emitted as debt—along with the liquid cash in circulation, the coverage by real cash, and the bank's earnings.

On my page at http://sites.google.com/site/financi...v/profit-banke I laid out a simulation for generating banking profits through credit expansion. There's also an XLS spreadsheet at http://sites.google.com/site/financi...attredirects=0 where you can tweak the parameters yourself.

Anyone wondering why money just vanishes in this system (like when high interest rates trigger restrictive monetary policy) can now see how "stabilization" is easily manufactured through massive bank profits. Honestly, it's just a series of moves designed to hide a scam. For a scam to last, you can't have infinite credit expansion because that triggers inflation. If that happens, people start asking questions. It often happens that countries with huge exports—which basically offsets the local money emission—run into inflation issues. In those cases, the banking sector has to park their earnings overseas. That's actually the explanation for why there was so much investment in foreign bonds. It's simple: it encourages more exports and keeps domestic inflation down. Even China raised its reserve requirements just to tighten the money supply in their own market. These foreign investments are really just a way to acquire assets in other nations, creating a closed loop of economic servitude (highly developed exporting nation -> foreign investment -> increased lending in importing nations -> asset liquidation to pay off debt -> bankruptcy).

Jerry Williams41 said:Banks are going to keep manufacturing money regardless of whether we stick to a Gold Standard or not. Personally, I don't mind gold—it’s a decent way to strip the power of money creation out of the hands of politicians—but it brings up that exact headache Maria Thomas48 keeps pointing out, which is the issue of hoarding or, if you ask me, an unspoken monopoly on gold as a functional medium of exchange.

Banks can't actually manufacture money if we just pass a law to stop them. If the reserve requirement is set higher than 50%, there's no money expansion through fractional reserve banking. It’s actually pretty simple to kill off money expansion, and it would be a huge win for the Reform Party.

fadedwolf20 said:The current situation is just a total mess, honestly, but I don't get why we don't just tie currency to gold and call it a day. Why does money have to be all virtual anyway? As long as it's just digital numbers and its value is dictated by market whims rather than something you can actually hold in your hand, things are gonna go sideways. We'll see hyperinflation because someone like Suker decides to hit the money printer button every time they need a quick fix, or it'll be because of the big banks... personally, I think both ways suck.

Then again, it might make more sense to shift that power from the banks over to the government—since at least the people pick the leaders, whereas banks aren't answerable to anyone... But given the American mentality—and let's be real, the way American politicians act too—I wouldn't bet a dime that wouldn't end in a complete fiasco... So yeah, Gold Standard. That's the move. Redeemable in Gold or silver.

The bankers are actually the ones pushing for a metal standard. Most of the gold mines are owned by the big banks anyway. Even a country like Greece might end up selling off a gold mine just to cover their debts. I actually laid out the whole issue with the metal standard in a very straightforward article here: http://sites.google.com/site/financi...ma-do-rjesenja. If you've read it, we can dive into the details, or if there's anything confusing, just let me know. The answer is basically sitting right there in the second paragraph.