Posts by Robin Rodriguez5

Gregory Harris8 said:Damn, AT&T is struggling so hard that after laying off 450 people, they actually had to pull out of this festival too. T-Mobile should just jump in at this point; they’re the only ones left who haven't tarnished their reputation yet.

But yeah, it would be a tragedy if we lost this fest. Regardless of how much some people hated it or how chaotic it got (remember those geniuses managing the gates last year?), it’s the reason bands that wouldn't normally bother visiting our corner of the world actually show up here.

Profits plummeted by 66% in the last quarter🤦
I don't know if that's why they're pulling the sponsorship, but something is clearly going south at AT&T, at least according to the latest numbers.

I really hope it still happens. At the end of the day, it's still the biggest and most attended festival in the US.

I think you guys missed the mark by posting in the wrong subforum. 😬
This one would definitely be a better fit:

brightridge59 said:I’ve heard people argue that if a band has been gone for ages (like The Beatles, for example), then it makes sense to bring something that massive back to the public since they shaped everything that followed in music.
I still don't see the point. Even if you can mimic the music—especially if the songs aren't overly complex to play—how on earth are you supposed to replicate the vocals of
John Lennon or Paul McCartney? It's physically impossible. And what are the odds that someone with a similar voice would also happen to play those tracks exactly the way The Beatles did?
Even if they hit every single mark, what's the actual purpose of it all when I KNOW it isn't them? 😁

You 😬can

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ52sC59hDg

Tribute bands will exist as long as there's an audience hungry for them. Personally, I don't get techno or house, and I couldn't care less about it, but I don't waste my breath questioning the philosophical necessity of its existence, let alone searching for some deeper meaning behind it. It's a free market and a democracy, and that's 😁just
how it works.

Mark Campbell5, don't get mad, but you clearly don't have the basics down. You're tossing around theories with total confidence that are, to put it mildly, flat-out wrong. A zero percent tax on banks? Should we draft our own federal budget, or just wait for the European Union to hand us one? Seizing private property? The government isn't some social welfare agency tasked with babysitting bank profits. 🤣
Where exactly are you getting this "information" from?

The whole thing is pure bullshit.

According to the official projections, federal revenue for the next fiscal year is supposed to climb by 5 percent to $112.8 billion. Looking further ahead, they’re banking on growth of 6.4 percent per year—hitting $120 billion in 2013 and $127.6 billion in 2014.

It’s the same old story: just a wishlist of impossible dreams. Forecasting annual revenue growth at 5 or 6 percent is massive; frankly, I’d call it delusional. Since I'm assuming these projected revenues aren't coming from planned tax hikes, they must be betting on a surge in consumer spending, employment, and corporate profits to drive up tax receipts. But based on what? 🙂

The real issue with the budget isn't the revenue side, it's the spending. But obviously, The White House has no intention of cutting costs (shocking, I know). Instead, they're planning for more spending, essentially hoping that revenue will magically grow fast enough to catch up with expenses and shrink the deficit on its own.
They keep tossing GDP growth rates around like they're candy. The first quarter of this year was in the red, and while the second quarter saw a meager 0.8% bump, The White House refuses to budge, still insisting on a 1.5% growth rate for the year. 😁

Alright, glad to hear it 🙂
In those early posts, he wouldn't shut up about some PhD economist who gave him the full breakdown, so I naturally assumed you were the one behind it.

Maria Thomas48, are you actually the economics PhD that Pernar keeps calling his guru?

Maria Thomas48 said:The first guy who shows up in politics without being totally corrupt is Ivan Pernar. It’ll take him some time to connect all the dots regarding economic slavery here in America, but people learn as they live.

I started reading the mystery of banking and gave up. The guy might explain certain technical things well, but he's got errors. For example, he ruins the whole argument by tying the money supply directly to prices. That situation only works if we have a single commodity and all the money tends to be spent on trade. You can easily show that prices don't necessarily have to be linked to the money supply, and they shouldn't be. Prices should be linked to covering costs and hitting a specific profit margin. If the author can't grasp certain things, then he's going to explain a lot of things wrong. I'm not saying he won't explain how banks issue money, but generally, he'll stay intellectually stunted when trying to reach a solution.

And the earnings for the entrepreneur, the workers, and ultimately the banks come from creating some kind of new value. Like, you plant strawberries, wait for them to grow, and then sell them. Those strawberries didn't exist before; now they do. That is tangible and very tasty value.

Everyone here who wants to learn about the money scam needs to distinguish between creating new value and creating money. For instance, nobody has any money, yet you produce strawberries. The conclusion drawn from the money supply side is that the strawberries are free. Is that really how it works? The labor used in growing them has to be exchanged for some other kind of labor. That's where money comes in. Strawberries are a bad example because they aren't a permanent value.

Take an example where a small town has 10 houses and needs 5 more. According to the local money supply, the value of the houses should change once those 5 are built. But the same amount of time and materials went into the construction. It's obvious that to maintain prices, more money has to be injected. It makes no sense to increase the value of money, because then those who hold the most of it reap the profit from everyone else's labor.

Anyway, up until now, I thought you actually believed what you were writing. But after that sentence, it's clear you're just a joker. Good luck to you. 👍

I didn't say for no reason that today's politicians work for the bankers. If we have such a massive error in money regulation, and the Government, the President, the Federal Reserve, and the political parties refuse to fix it (I wrote to them), then it's obvious that politics is just a game for paradise. I said I won't vote for politicians like that anymore because it's just a waste of time. The exception is Ivan Pernar.

If that's how it is, then just give us back the corrupt 👍

Here's the latest topic. Dive in and let me know what you think.

Nicole Gomez38 said:Regarding those four major banks—I already told you they aren't, so please don't badger me with the same question ten times over—but regardless, they’re all undervalued.

As for a bank run, it would definitely be a problem depending on the level of credit multiplier—from what I gather, based on $33 bank deposits, they can issue $50 in loans. Honestly, I'm dying to know just how much of that "virtual money" is actually out there. So, yes, I think it would be a problem, though I have no clue to what extent since those details are kept under lock and key by the big players. It's definitely something we should dive into eventually, but it's a bit of a tangent right now. I suspect that credit multiplier will always exist; it’s just a matter of how high it goes.

You didn't say that before. Now you're claiming they weren't, even though your last take was that they were rehabilitated and sold at the same time—which, let’s be honest, isn't true either. But whatever. I'm not going to waste my breath arguing with you about this anymore.

Look, here’s the deal: you showed up to a conversation where people were actually trying to find constructive solutions, and instead of contributing, you just dropped a pile of clichés and half-baked talking points. This is a forum, not a soapbox. If you were actually looking for a real discussion, you would have bothered to fact-check your claims before tossing them out like gospel. Using the surge in the Swiss franc and the mess it caused for anyone holding those loans as a way to score cheap political points is low. It’s a serious issue, not a campaign stunt. For now, I'll let you stay, but take your "banking insights" elsewhere—find a thread better suited for your brand of amateur punditry.

Jerry Williams41 said:If you go ahead and delete it, you basically end up looking like a shill for the banking Masons, but if you don't, you lose that essential exchange of ideas and you're essentially preventing people from forming their own perspectives based on the debate. It’s definitely a messy off-topic situation, sure, but maybe it would be better to just move the conversation to its own dedicated thread and let people work on founding the association in peace.

It’ll be moved to a separate thread. I just wanted to make sure the people following the main feed actually understood why certain individuals simply aren't fit to help solve these problems.

Nicole Gomez38 said:That's a great question. A bank run isn't actually an issue if there’s no credit multiplication happening . In other words—if the Federal Reserve prohibits banks from issuing multiple loans against the exact same deposit (basically multiplying debt without increasing the actual money supply).

At the same time, a portion of those deposits—say, $15 billion—is held at the Federal Reserve as required reserves. If things ever get "dicey," the Fed simply lowers the reserve requirement and pushes those same deposits back to the commercial banks
.
From what I gather, though, American banks do engage in credit multiplication (albeit somewhat limitedly). If that's the case, it means they truly don't have a portion of the deposits on hand—but that's a whole other conversation, and you can't blame the government for it; that money was never physically there to begin with, regardless of who owns the bank
.

Make up your mind: would a bank run actually be a problem or not? You’re out here playing both sides—one minute you’re rambling about how it wouldn't be an issue if certain conditions were met, and the next, you're acting like those bank deposits are perfectly safe and easy to pay out. Pick a lane.

Am I ever going to get actual answers from these banks? They control over 75% of the market here in the States, yet they were sold off for less than what was spent just to bail them out in the first place.

Nicole Gomez38 said:The issue isn't actually about paying back the savers—that money is sitting right there in the bank—it's the impossibility of disabling foreign exchange clauses for loans while still allowing them for savings at the same time.

Ideally, the owners should just become employees and clients themselves. After all, a bank operates just like a casino—it doesn't actually create any real value; it just shuffles the chips (the cash) around in a circle so that the house always wins and everyone else loses.

If that were true, what would a bank run even be? Why would the term even exist, let alone pose a threat?

Nicole Gomez38 said:The top three were all sold off for peanuts (Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan Chase). Wells Fargo was never even state-owned to begin with, and as for Hypo—they're just expanding using US dollars that the Republican Party squeezed out of the country, all while paying off bribes to Sanders & Co. for those little favors.

Don't exhaust yourself. I asked you which specific one was sold for less than what it cost to bail it out via the FDIC. You’re the one making that "claim," not me.

So, we're slowly realizing that some of these weren't even sold because they were foreign-owned from day one. Come on, we're almost at the point where we uncover the rest of the mess.

Nicole Gomez38 said:I misspoke—what I meant was they were bailed out and then immediately sold off for pennies on the dollar. We all know who pulled the strings on that.

"Banks bailed out with 15 billion, sold for one, while they're worth 40 billion today"

He claims that 15 billion was spent on the FDIC bailout, yet they were sold for just a billion, even though their current value sits at 40 billion. As a specific example, the Libertarian Party points to the Bank of Miami, which was first sold to an Italian for 84 million, then flipped to an Austrian for 136 million, and finally ended up in the hands of a Frenchman for a whopping billion.

Those big four were also sold way under market value. It’s pretty obvious the government ended up drowning in debt while being stripped of its assets—all while claiming they were selling stuff off specifically to stay out of the red.

You’ve misspoken more times than I can count in just this one day you've been here. 😁

Look, I asked you a very specific question: which of the major banks was sold for less than its bailout cost? It's easy to throw around slogans about how banks were handed over to shady foreign interests for pennies on the dollar after being rescued, but I'm asking for hard data. You brought up the Bank of Los Angeles—which controls less than 7% of the market—so tell me, exactly how much money was poured into its bailout?

The heavy hitters—JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Hypo Real Estate—account for over 75% of the total banking market. That is a massive majority. So, which one of them was actually bailed out for more than its sale price? 🙂

Nicole Gomez38 said:Actually, the situation is even better—banks hold most of their deposits in foreign currency, which means if the dollar fluctuates against the local currency, citizens wouldn't lose much.

"According to the Associated Press, total foreign currency and local currency deposits at banks reached $173.1 billion by the end of May, with foreign currency accounts making up nearly 80 percent, according to Federal Reserve data."

However, a portion of those "foreign currency deposits" actually refers to local currency accounts tied to exchange rate clauses—basically, people save in dollars, but the bank holds the local currency instead. If they didn't, banks would need to keep 80% of their cash in actual foreign currency, which would make daily operations a nightmare because they wouldn't have enough liquidity in local cash.

In other words, just because Americans are saving in foreign denominations doesn't mean the banks are physically sitting on piles of dollars; as I mentioned, they hold the local currency equivalent.

The Federal Reserve's own tables give us the real answer regarding how much foreign currency is actually held by banks. Data from the Fed from March 2011 shows that total foreign currency deposits at banks sit at $142.5 billion. This means there is more foreign currency than local currency in the banks, though still less than that 80% mark.

To put it simply: while 80% of deposits are categorized as foreign, part of that is actually local currency protected by exchange rate clauses.

"Table D8: Foreign currency deposits at banks"

142,502.6

Here’s the kicker: without nationalizing the banks, it's impossible to protect both debtors and savers at the same time. You can't selectively cancel exchange rate protections just for loans. The whole point of nationalization is to resolve the issue of foreign debt for borrowers while minimizing the sting of devaluation for savers.

For the record, I am strictly against communism and I'm all for lower tax rates. I'm talking about nationalizing banks because it's the only way to shield private property from these macro-level thieves—not because I want the government seizing assets one day. Quite the opposite, actually; my family lost everything to communists, and now the banks are doing the exact same thing to us, except they call it "foreclosure" instead of nationalization.

http://zelenapolitika.wordpress.com/...reza-na-dobit/

Of course they hold a massive majority in foreign currency. About 90% of anyone paying attention knows this, because you hear about the "problem" of people saving in dollars instead of dollars on every street corner. You’re completely off base here.
Now, answer me this: which major bank was sold to foreign investors for less money than it cost to bail it out? 🙂

Nicole Gomez38 said:Let's call a spade a spade: these banks are thieves. The owners bought them up for way less than what it actually cost to bail them out. This isn't really nationalization; it's just reclaiming stolen goods. Even Slavko Kulić, the former director of the economic institute, has made this exact point.

We're headed for bankruptcy by the end of 2011! The only way out is to nationalize what was stolen from us.
http://e-kastela.com/novosti/american...ji-pokradenog/

Which specific banks are you talking about being sold to foreigners for less than their bailout costs?
Start with the big four here in America: ZABA, PBZ, RBA, and Erste Group.

Nicole Gomez38 said:The whole goal here is to protect people with deposits at the expense of the bank owners. A devaluation is inevitable at this point; trying to prop up the Dollar as artificially strong by pumping external debt while the Federal Reserve acts like nothing more than a glorified currency exchange is simply unsustainable in the long run.

It’s also worth noting that total debt (loans issued) exceeds deposits by about $600 billion, whereas actual cash on hand (in vaults, registers, or even under mattresses) is only around $100 billion.

As of late 2010, total loans sit at roughly $1.8 trillion, while the total money supply—deposits plus physical cash—is only about $1.3 trillion. Because of how this monetary model works, the gap between debt and the money supply is widening fast; basically, debt is ballooning four times faster than the money supply. (That's exactly why we're seeing so many freezes, foreclosures, and liquidity crises).

Since half of all bank deposits are held in foreign currency, if the Dollar were to devalue by 20%, those deposits would effectively lose 10% of their value since only half are held in domestic currency. (And that’s assuming the government actually chooses to protect citizens over the bank owners, which is my ultimate goal).

If I were thinking ahead, I’d suggest citizens hit the banks hard and start swapping their Dollars for foreign currency before any major devaluation hits.

At the end of the day, the only question that really matters is whether the government stands with its people or with the banks—everything else is just technicalities.

Where exactly are you pulling these numbers from? The idea that bank deposits are split perfectly 50/50 between Dollars and foreign currency sounds like a guess.

Nicole Gomez38 said:Every single libertarian out there is pushing to dismantle this criminal monetary setup and hand control back to the government.

In America, you can't pull that off without nationalizing the banks—which we could achieve just by tweaking tax laws. We’d essentially squeeze the banks into losses until foreign owners get tired of paying for endless bailouts and just hand the keys over to the state.

And let's be clear: I'm not talking about those old-school, communist-style expropriations.

You also have to realize that what I’m proposing for the banks is exactly what the government is already doing to us—taking nearly 40% of our paychecks while people are barely keeping their heads above water.

@"On the other hand, debt default shouldn't really worry the borrowers, but rather the lenders."

Yeah, sure—that's easy to say when the bank isn't seizing your entire paycheck or kicking you out of your house.

PS: Nationalizing banks isn't some "communist" plot. Sweden did it back in '92 during their credit crisis, which was pretty similar to what we're facing now; France pulled the same move in '82. If you want to see how this has been handled globally, do some digging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization

It looks like the government has been running your playbook for years. They’ve been using that exact strategy—driving things into the red—with their only major player, Wells Fargo. If every bank in America followed that pattern, we’d be living in a real-life version of Mad Max on our streets.