I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than armies." - Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the US.
That may be a very radical statement both to make as well as to hear but very few truths are more subtley buried under a heap of lies than the fact that a bank, more importantly a privately owned bank at that, can be more destructive to the generation and distribution of wealth and be more harmful to society than unrestricted banking motivated only by greed. Here's how and why...
You know in the good old days there used to be a class of people known in our childhood story books as bandits. Remember Ali Baba and the forty thieves?! Ok, so these guys, however much they enriched themselves on looting other people's wealth, had to live a cursed life away from society hiding away in the harsh jungles throughtout their lives. So one day one of them must have thought "Hey, what's the point in looting so much of wealth if we can't enjoy it like kings? All we can end up doing with this loot here in the jungles is simply dig holes and bury the booty or hide it in caves and fight among ourselves and die while our hard earned booties go to some lucky guy who might stumble on them.."
So they decided something must be done, but what? So they came up with an ingenious solution!
They hit town and told the townsfolk "Listen up guys, if anyone were to rob you and loot you, it must be only us. So why don't you give all your wealth and money for us to safe keep, so you can sleep safe and don't ever have to worry about losing your money? What's more, we even give you an extra interest on the money you keep with us."
So the townsfolk discussed among themselves..."boy, this is a great idea, if ever anyone were to rob us, it must be only these guys and it sure makes sense to keep them in charge of our money and valuables..." And thus was born the modern banking system - an ingenious mechanism for the rich to safekeep their wealth and the bandits to legitimize themselves as well as live off on other people's money in a lot more enjoyable way than they could do back in the jungles.
So the bandits moved into town, set up offices and put up boards and changed the name of their profession from banditry to banking!
You may disagree on the historical accuracy of the origins of banking but let there be no confusion that the Knights Templar and the Crusaders in whose times and practices, modern banking had its origins were, in actual fact, no better or no worse than bandits. There is no concept of pilgrimage to some goddamned "holy lands" in all the teaching of Jesus and where the hell were the europeans visiting travelling to Jerusalem and what the heck were the Knights Templar doing safe keeping their money?
So what do these banking bandits do with the huge hordes of other people's wealth at their disposal? Simple, make more money out of it so you can give some as interest to entice even more people to keep their money with them and keep the rest to themselves. Sounds fair enough on the face of it but the trouble comes when you consider that you need to earn more and more to keep this cycle going and that means you need to incrementally increase your lending as well as rates of interest to a point where this cycle of greed collapses on itself...
Isn't there a better way of managing money so it will serve the objectives of both keeping it safe as well as promote wealth in a more just way? There is, if only the public cares to seek...seek and you will find!
Peace,
Dayavanth M Emmanuel
