The following as an exchange from the Money-Ethics Forum on a book about Capitalism.
Hints to read the below text.
If you have a small screen, put your mouse on the arrow bar at the bottm, hold down the left button and move your hand to left and right to view the text.
At 10:38 AM 5/2/2001 -0500, Jerry Lobdill wrote: I'm reading this fascinating history of financial speculation and recommend it unreservedly (no reserves...get it?...:-)). It seems that almost all practices of the banksters go way back to the Roman Empire. One of the interesting concepts of this book is that Capitalism is really an economic system in which freely acting agents wager assets against the success or failure of enterprises whose probable fate can only be assumed. There is risk of failure always. In the game of capitalism the wager is for some period of time determined by the free agent wagering the assets. And...the success or failure is completely defined by the returns--dividends and by the price of the shares or other financial instruments at the time of sale by the agent. Such a definition seems to me to be quite accurate. This means that values must, of necessity, be determined by societal perception of worth. Thus, speculation and the bubble effect are a necessary part of the mix. Which means that inflation is a natural part of the mix. A strict gold standard without credit possibilities cannot fuel such a system, can it? Jerry Lobdill ******************** Jerry- Your description is accurate but really outlines the results of economic functions by the corporate structure. I have been resolving an opinion about corporate structures and their malfeasance in our society for years. The big corporations don't take any risk!! They get bailed out by the Government. Click Here. (Please use your browsers <BACK> Button to return.) The corporation, by its impersonal structure--not having a resident majority owner--has all the predisposition for evil as does an absentee landlord. The corporation takes money--profits--out of the community and returns nothing to the local society but jobs which can be terminated at will. A major corporate evil is the corporately-owned news media. They toe the government line and ignore local problems. They have killed investigative reporting. (See what Jack Anderson says.) Click Here !!! (Please use your browsers <BACK> Button to return.) If you look at Nevada History, where I live, you can really see the consequences perpetrated by corporate control of the gambling industry. Profits are the be-all and end-all and are siphoned out of the community and dispersed to shareholders that contribute nothing to the community. When local people owned the gambling industry, the profits stayed in the state and many cultural and social benefits were derived from their largesse and contributions to their communities. The local owners paid living wages. The corporations use their political clout to pass anti-union laws and pay minimum wages. An individual living in the community wouldn't dare to do what the impersonal corporation does. In addition, Nevada passed a campaign finance law, where the limit on an individual campaign contributions is $1000. The corporate limit is $10,000. Why should a corporation that cannot vote be able to finance a campaign to a greater extent than a voter? Nationally, we have the same situation. Corporations, owned by foreign investors, have major control of our two political parties. The major oil companies are immune from national anti-trust laws and they contribute to all candidates. Did you hear anything about Exxon-Mobil and the obvious anti-competitive, antitrust situation they created by merging and eliminating gas stations. Now, there are no longer any Mobil Stations in Reno. Most oil distributors and refiners are majority owned by foreigners. Look at UBS-Paine Webber. It's like of UBS-Walburg. They are foreign-owned corporations contributing to local and national election campaigns. Do you realize that BP-AMOCO---British Petroleum---is taking our North Slope oil and selling it to the Japanese? Do you read anything about it in the papers now that we have this false "Energy Crisis"? Now they want to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Preserve. Who do you think will get that franchise.? Corporations are the evil element in Capitalism. Do you know that South Dakota has made it illegal for corporations to buy any more farms? They realize what is happening to the local economies when corporations take over businesses. What we have in this country is a republic form of government controlled by an oligarchy. Nuff' said. The most harmful and excessive control of our "Free Press" is due to unleashed corporate mergers and acquisitions. Our Media is nothing but a parrot, programmed by the Power Elite. The change, due to "criminal deregulation", which allows more control of TV and Newspapers, in local markets, by corporate owners, has deprived our citizens of the functions of a Free Press. The Founding Fathers made the Freedom of Speech and of the Press part of our Constitutional because they knew we needed a media that would speak out against government excess. That has been effectively eliminated by the Dirty Dozen that now control our National Media. Our Media is no longer a Voice of the People, (VOXPOP). The National Media is the voice of the Power Elite. We have permanently lost objective journalism. No more investi- gative reporting of the Power Structure.... No more reporting like we had in Viet Nam...they won't allow journalists to truthfully report what's happened on the battle ground...they only allow what the governemtn wants to feed us. No National Media will assert its right to a Free Press....They might get their licenses pulled by the Feds. The large, local newspaper owner was too independent....So, they have bought them, all, out. The gold standard will never make it and talking about it is a waste of time. All the gold is in too few hands. The Banksters own it all. Money Talks. Bob$$$