Banking by Donald Trump & Gotham City

Scott Rodriguez19 said:Look, we are just the kind of nation where everyone wants the lifestyle without wanting to do the heavy lifting. Honestly, you have to start with the people—not with the banks or the monetary system—otherwise, even communism might have actually worked.

The core idea is sound, really. But if you actually sit down and study how money is regulated today, you find undeniable proof that hard work, diligence, and saving money don't guarantee success anymore. Most people can't get ahead for objective reasons, not subjective ones. That's why this whole conversation keeps happening. It's why hard work doesn't pay, companies go bust, people lose their jobs, and homes and apartments end up being auctioned off. And as more people fall into that trap, they become a burden on everyone else through social welfare or early retirement.

Of course, we have the solutions, we just need to actually apply them. How are we supposed to tell our kids that working hard and being frugal always pays off when the math clearly shows that isn't true right now?

Stay smart and stay alive!

Scott Rodriguez19 said:Look, we are just the kind of nation where everyone wants the lifestyle without wanting to do the heavy lifting. Honestly, you have to start with the people—not with the banks or the monetary system—otherwise, even communism might have actually worked.

We lived through socialism here, and if you ask me, it was a decent system—it was just the people who exploited it... through excessive sick leave, endless days off, and so on.

So, I came across some interesting news today: consumer savings have actually started to dip over the last four months.

We're looking at a 0.5% drop in deposits over that four-month stretch. At the exact same time, credit growth was actually up. You could probably conclude from that that people are pulling cash out of their bank accounts, but they aren't really spending it or paying bills through official channels—maybe just fueling the shadow economy.

The thing is, this kind of trend hits the liquidity of the whole banking system pretty hard. Deposits aren't fully covered, and if everyone starts withdrawing, banks could end up short on actual cash, since only a tiny percentage of total deposits is sitting there ready to go. Most of it is tied up in required reserves. What bank owners are going to do when things get tight... well, we'll just have to wait and see.

Robin Wright27 said:We lived through socialism here, and if you ask me, it was a decent system—it was just the people who exploited it... through excessive sick leave, endless days off, and so on.

Well, first off, it was communism—at least from what I understand—and it wasn't until after the US managed to secure those loans that they could even afford to maintain a socialist setup.

Now, just imagine if Pernar had actually brought on an economic guru with a bit more actual substance behind them, someone like Massimo.

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

Robin Rodriguez5 said:Maria Thomas48, are you actually the economics PhD that Pernar keeps calling his guru?

No, I am not. Pernar wouldn't just make things up like that.

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.

Robin Rodriguez5 said: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.

Glad to hear it. Our American academics spend all their time writing textbooks. Maybe it has to be that way. If everything was perfect, they wouldn't have jobs or anything left to write about.

There’s a good joke about a lawyer and his son who also became a lawyer. The son tells his father he finally settled a dispute over a property line involving a plum tree—they agreed to just cut it down. And the father says, "Son, I spent fifteen years training you on that very same plum tree."😂

Seems like the same principle applies to economics. The checks keep clearing, but the actual problems never get solved because there's really no rush.

Regarding that article, "The Department of the Treasury is in the red, and procrastination isn't an option anymore," there are warnings and suggestions coming straight from the HUB. Up until recently, Governor Roha was the one handling this stuff, but it seems he isn't being quite as compliant lately, so the HUB had to step in and handle the lecture directly.

And what does any of this have to do with banking? It has everything to do with it. Seriously. Handing out money solely as debt—specifically through bank loans—is exactly what triggered the crisis here in America back in 1994. Now, bankers are going to claim that some other method will pull us out of this mess (savings, certain Administration measures, whatever). It’s just a magician's trick. They divert your attention to one thing while the real action is happening somewhere else entirely.

I honestly don't know how much longer the public is going to fall for these little magic tricks from the HUB, but it's getting old. They would be better off just keeping their heads down and praying people haven't caught on. Because once they do, there won't be anything left of those bankers.

God, you people are absolutely clueless, just blindly diving headfirst into banking like a bunch of idiots who don't have a single clue what they're doing

Richard Moore6 said:God, you people are absolutely clueless, just blindly diving headfirst into banking like a bunch of idiots who don't have a single clue what they're doing

man, I gotta say, I'm kind of feeling the same way...

Maria Thomas48 said:Regarding that article, "The Department of the Treasury is in the red, and procrastination isn't an option anymore," there are warnings and suggestions coming straight from the HUB. Up until recently, Governor Roha was the one handling this stuff, but it seems he isn't being quite as compliant lately, so the HUB had to step in and handle the lecture directly.

And what does any of this have to do with banking? It has everything to do with it. Seriously. Handing out money solely as debt—specifically through bank loans—is exactly what triggered the crisis here in America back in 1994. Now, bankers are going to claim that some other method will pull us out of this mess (savings, certain Administration measures, whatever). It’s just a magician's trick. They divert your attention to one thing while the real action is happening somewhere else entirely.

I honestly don't know how much longer the public is going to fall for these little magic tricks from the HUB, but it's getting old. They would be better off just keeping their heads down and praying people haven't caught on. Because once they do, there won't be anything left of those bankers.

So, you're saying what The Administration is doing is actually right? 🤔

Charles Ramos7 said:So, you're saying what The Administration is doing is actually right? 🤔

It's definitely not right. But honestly, the proposals coming out of the HUB are just the same stuff Greece tried using without seeing any results. Cutting government spending doesn't work. Raising taxes doesn't work either. Now they're starting to talk about different measures, and Ljubo Jurčić is looking into it: "America could have the fastest growing economy without all the blood, sweat, and tears"

"We, essentially, can produce money to cover newly created value. The Federal Reserve is making a mistake because they don't base the money supply on American production, but on the dollar."

The only error Ljubo is trying to pull on us is that this money comes from issuing credit. When we talk about banking reform, there needs to be a separation between issuing money and lending it.

We aren't going to hear a proposal like that from the HUB, whether it's from this current Administration or the last one.

Minister Dalić finally weighed in with her response: "Lower interest rates". It’s the same old story, really. She keeps making these misguided demands. You have the government trying to cut costs while simultaneously telling banks to slash rates. None of these measures actually solve anything. Honestly, I get the feeling this is just a scripted performance meant for the general public—a way to dull people's senses and distract everyone from finding any real solutions.

Jerry Williams41 said:Maria Thomas48, it seems like you’re still struggling to wrap your head around the whole concept of newly created value, despite what was being attempted to be explained via the strawberry analogy just a few pages back.
If we look at the mechanics of debt—say you borrow 100 bucks and have to pay back 110—you can't just run that cycle indefinitely without some actual value being generated along the way. It simply doesn't work unless there is new value being produced to cover the gap, and that is exactly what happens over time; for instance, a century ago, jumbo jets didn't exist, but now they do.

So, what's the point of economics anyway? It's basically just setting the rules for how we divvy up LIMITED resources. Land, apartments, houses, labor, stuff people make... you name it. But honestly? Economics has built this massive empire that mostly just serves itself. Interest rates, inflation, deflation, derivatives, futures, loans, stocks, the big exchanges—it's all such a headache of terms, but the core concept is actually super simple:

The entire engine of Western civilization is fueled by constant growth. Growth, growth, and more freaking growth! But here's the kicker—we live on one finite planet with limited resources, so obviously, this endless expansion can't, and won't, last forever. I'd argue the 2008 crash happened because we finally slammed right into the physical limits of our environment. This whole economic setup is basically a giant Ponzi scheme that expects goods, services, and even the human population to keep climbing forever just to stay afloat. Then, back in 2005, we hit peak-oil, which sent oil prices skyrocketing to $147 a barrel by 2008, triggering this massive avalanche of crap that we're still drowning in today.

To me, it makes perfect sense—the root cause is that money is issued through credit along with interest, and to pay off that interest, you *have* to create new value. But right now, the whole system is shaking because we can't create that new value anymore—we've hit an energy ceiling and we're teetering on the edge of an energy abyss. Naturally, that means the credits and the interest can't be paid back... It's all over, folks.

The saddest part? People aren't even reading the market signals. Since oil is the literal FOUNDATION of our modern world, when oil gets expensive, everything else goes up too—so most people miss the real culprit behind the price hikes. They're all talking about some subprime mortgage crisis in the US and how the bankers decided to 🙏play too hard. But honestly? They've been playing this game since the end of WWII; the only difference is that back then, they actually had the resources to back up their moves, and now they don't...

Man, we had it way too good, which is why we ended up in this Idiocracy situation. We didn't invest enough in R&D and we were just too lazy, even though these problems were predicted decades ago by guys like Dr. Hubbert.

You’ve got it wrong. Every single morning, six billion people wake up and head out to get things done. And every day, those six billion people produce more than they did just twenty-four hours prior. If you look at the laws of thermodynamics, resources remain constant; we're really just seeing a continuous evolution in how we apply technology to utilize them.

Jerry Williams41 said:You’ve got it wrong. Every single morning, six billion people wake up and head out to get things done. And every day, those six billion people produce more than they did just twenty-four hours prior. If you look at the laws of thermodynamics, resources remain constant; we're really just seeing a continuous evolution in how we apply technology to utilize them.

Look, the law of conservation of energy has absolutely nothing to do with raw resources. If you’ve got one liter of diesel and you burn it to move an air-conditioned car with four people inside 9.3 miles, that’s the law of conservation of energy right there. The chemical energy stored in the hydrocarbons within that fuel gets released through combustion—oxidation, if we're being fancy—and turns into engine work and waste heat. Once it's burned, it's gone. That liter simply doesn't exist anymore.

Even if sixty billion people woke up tomorrow, they couldn't get as much work done as what 88 million barrels of oil accomplish for us in a single day.

When this massive, super-rich energy source starts shrinking, it's a straight shot down the drain—economic activity drops, GDP tanks, jobs disappear, and eventually, society is forced back into farming. It's inevitable. Because once the tractors stop running, and once a single farmer with his machine can't feed 1,000 people anymore, then 999 of them are going to have to head back to the countryside and grow everything themselves just to survive.

Just for the sake of argument, let's pretend those 1,000 people without tractors could actually produce the same amount of food that one poor guy behind the wheel used to make. But what happens to all the goods and services those other 999 people were providing before? 😕 They vanish—gone with the wind! 👍

That’s basically a simplified look at what's happening to the world today, and it really kicked off back in 2005 when oil fields in terminal decline started hitting in Mexico, the UK, and Norway. But hey, maybe we should move this over to the energy subforum so we don't wreck this thread.

What really trips me up about this whole thing is this "zero-sum game" concept... If we're stuck on a planet where we can't just export our goods and services to Mars, and every single country on Earth is drowning in debt... even the heavy hitters like Japan, France, and Germany... I gotta wonder, who are they actually owing? I mean, shouldn't everyone's debt just cancel each other out? It would make sense if Greece was the debtor and Germany was the creditor, but why is it that literally everybody is in the red?

Nathan Kelly5 said:The "PIGS" nations—Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain—along with us, represent the group hit hardest by the crisis and crushed by debt. They tend to share that Mediterranean, laid-back, high-spending mindset. If it were purely about the population's attitude, why wouldn't we see countries like Sweden, Denmark, or Finland on this list?

Hold up! Even Sweden, Denmark, and Finland are swimming in debt... honestly, every single country is deep in the red. Like, seriously?! Who are they even borrowing from? Are they sending checks to Martians or something? 😕

fadedwolf20 said:Hold up! Even Sweden, Denmark, and Finland are swimming in debt... honestly, every single country is deep in the red. Like, seriously?! Who are they even borrowing from? Are they sending checks to Martians or something? 😕

I didn't need to look at Sweden or Denmark to realize one inescapable thing: we spend every single day working and building things, and yet the result is just an ever-growing mountain of debt.

The whole thing is intentional, not some accident. And the people who created this mess aren't going to be the ones to fix it. We’re the only ones who can. A recent CNN poll really shows how uninformed most people actually are. It was about supporting the new administration's austerity measures: http://edition.cnn.com/politics/us-economy-news...example. All those folks cheering for budget cuts and giving up their own rights under this new government wouldn't feel that way if they understood that austerity isn't the answer. It just shows how much brainwashing has happened. You see the same pattern in other countries where the situation is even worse. There's even an article by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman arguing that austerity is a mistake: http://nytimes.com/opinion/paul-krugman-crisis-austerity

It’s obvious the government needs to spend money rationally—getting the most bang for their buck—but the issue isn't about saving money. It's about how that money is being spent. If you just keep spending more to create even more debt, then obviously, that debt is just going to pile up.