"Debt Slavery" Replaces Physical Slavery

[Pharaoh]

This form of "debt slavery" or "debt peonage" was not just an accidental development of history. It was a deliberately-planned alternative to the slave arrangement in which owners were responsible for the feeding and care of a dependent population, and it is still with us today. Although European financiers were in favor of an American Civil War that would return the United States to its colonial status, they admitted privately that they were not necessarily interested in preserving slavery. They preferred "the European plan": capital could exploit labor by controlling the money supply, while letting the laborers feed themselves. In July 1862, this ploy was revealed in a notorious document called the Hazard Circular, which was circulated by British banking interests among their American banking counterparts. It said:

Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a means to control the volume of money. To accomplish this, the bonds must be used as a banking basis. . . . It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that.


http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/debt-serfdom.php



Today, the pyramid scheme of lending 10 dollars and requiring 11 back has resulted in the very inflationary spiral the Founding Fathers feared. The money supply is inflated with more and more debt, shrinking the value of the dollars paid to workers and propelling larger and larger portions of the population into debt peonage. If the government were to issue its own money rather than borrowing from banks that issued it, and if this money were used to pay for real goods and services (roads and bridges, sustainable energy development, health services, and the like), demand and supply would remain in balance and inflation would not result. A government with a properly designed and monitored system of publicly-issued money could fund itself without taxes, inflation or debt.

[skooooo]

1. Debtor prisons?

I wonder if it will ever get to the point where we're throwing people in jail because they can't pay their credit card debt?

:shrug:

[undeterred]

5. It costs money to keep people in prison

and they don't pay off debt while they're in there so how does that solve anything? Its not like you can pay a 'debt' to society in prison.

[skooooo]

7. Here's the answer:

For-profit prisons! Don't we already have these?

[MadHound]

2. The thing is that many people made a personal decision to go into debt

They weren't forced into it, they embraced it so that they could get those new ATVs, or take that trip, or what have you. Nobody and no circumstances forced them into debt other than peoples' own greed and stupidity. Now we're all paying for their foolishness.

[Pharaoh]

3. Alot of people...

went into debt due to loss of jobs to downsizing and the moving of factories and jobs overseas where labor is already at slave wages, or debt through illness and lack of proper healthcare that wiped them out, deregulation and public loss of oversight, and privitazation of everything since Reagan has done alot of the damage......

[MadHound]

4. I'm not arguing that didn't happen,

All I'm saying is that greed and stupidity on the part of a lot of people also contributed heavily to the mess that we're in. If it wasn't for the greed and stupidity of this segment of people, we wouldn't be facing near the financial crisis that we are now.

[Pharaoh]

8. Yes

We will always have stupid people.

But the whole capitalist economic system is a pyramid scheme. And all the money eventually ends up in a few hands. An economic system is just a game we all agree to play. The masses need to wake up to the fact that we have the power.


I don't have the answer to it, but the greed is mainly in the hands of the uber rich, they have been funneling your IRA's and 401K's into a great pyramid scheme called the stock market that's crashing as we speak. They even tried to put SS into that corrupt mess. People need to wake up.....

[ThomWV]

9. Think about what you've said.

Did you take out a bad loan? Did you falsify credit applications? Did you sign u fr payments you could not possibly make? I didn't. I don't know a single person who did. So now tell me, why are we suffering? Why are our prices going up and wages held stagnent? What on earth does our situation have to do with a few silly borrowers and even fewer big investors? Why are we being asked to bail any of these folks out? Who is being served here and why is the pain being felt by the general population so much greater than that being felt by the people who made the bad loans in the first place? Where is the connection? Why do bad home loans lead to $2.50 a dozen eggs? Why can't people afford to drive to work and what does that have to do with mortgage rates?

[Pharaoh]

11. I have no Debt

I saw this train wreck coming long ago.

Do you know the Federal Reserve is actually a private group:

They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; the rich and predatory money lenders. This is an era of economic misery and for the reasons that caused that misery, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks are fully liable. Half a million dollars was spent on one part of propaganda organized by those same European bankers for the purpose of misleading public opinion in regard to the Federal Reserve Bank.

http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/FED.html

[Donnachaidh]

18. and the changes to the bankruptcy laws and allowing the banks to charge usurious charges

had absolutely NOTHING to do with it? BOTH parties are guilty of basically handing the financial NECK of the country to the banks, to throttle as they will.

Stupidity has it's part - but greed and shortsightedness, thanks to many in Congress, is far larger a culprit.

[krkaufman]

23. Aside from whatever percent of the population has gotten itself into economic troubles ...

... your "stupidity" argument is better made by pointing-out the voting pattern of Americans for the last 28+ years. A large portion of the population has been fully on-board with the Republican economic policies that have led to our current state.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

16. But that kind of consumer spending is 70% of our GDP.

It was no accident that GWB told us to go shopping in the aftermath of 9-11. It was our patriotic duty, to get the wheels of commerce churning again. This situation has been deliberately engineered, so it's pointless to blame individuals for simply doing their part to prop up our growth-based economy.

[haele]

17. Ah, so it's the old "5% screwed up, so 95% have to pay" syndrome -

It wasn't a "lot of people" who made a personal, informed decision like that, it was only a few. What happened were a lot of LLC type institutions set up to scam as many unsophisticated, borderline poor people as they could, and the financial corporations that ended feeding off of them funneling purchasing power away from workers and/or pensioners. The amount of money that ended up going to debt on the lower levels, the working levels, is really a pittance - it's corporate greed where profits don't get turned back into the economy that's killing us.
Corporate "invested" money is not in circulation - for most people, it just sits there and supposedly, by the time it matures, it will become liquid and put back into circulation. It doesn't buy the farm machinery, the new car, the ATV or the European Vacation. It certainly doesn't pay for the college education or the emergency room visit. And of course, once the fees are skimmed off the top, it's worth a lot less than what we put into it.
I'm going into debt even though I am working my ass off because of rising prices of basics required to live (food, utilities, housing), the cost of gas to go to work, and the medical costs to take care of a disabled husband and kid with chronic problems. Yeah, the personal decision to go into debt apparently was based on my decision to get married and live close to where I could get the best paycheck and benefits in return for the "sale" of my investment of my training and experience to an employer. The same personal decision that most of the people I know who are going into debt have made.

Haele

[yellerpup]

19. Many people are forced into debt.

Do you quit your job because your car breaks down and there is no alternate transportation or do you borrow money to get your car fixed? If your child needs emergency health care, do you borrow money to get help for them, or do you just let them die while praying for the best? If a plane flies into the WTC and you lose your job, do you borrow money or go live under a bridge? If the stock market crashes and your IRA loses 80% of it's value, do you pay a 20% penalty on what is left so you can have money for groceries? Not all people 'choose' to take on debt. Some people ARE forced into it.

[K-W]

20. And some people make the personal decision to buy yachts. EOM

[BlooInBloo]

6. LOLOLOL!!! Compound interest = pyramid scheme - that's CLASSIC!

I'll think of that over my coffee-slavery, and before I do my laundry slavery, oh - I shouldn't forget to make breakfast-slavery.

[ThomWV]

10. And who amongst us would explain the meaning of 'rents'?

[formercia]

12. The Federal Reserve system was supposed to solve the problem

They managed to get rid of the 'Greenback' and created financial chaos which the Federal Reserve, backed by Gold and securities of tangible value was supposed to solve. Nixon's removal of the requirement to use Gold to settle debt was the beginning of the end by turning the Dollar into an essentially worthless fiat currency.

[Pharaoh]

13. That's more propaganda

The greenback got Kennedy and Lincoln Killed because it was a currency lent without interest.

It was cutting in on the action of the corporate Elite.

Both Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were assassinated while they held the high office of President of the United States. Both of these former presidents had also created their own money system to run the United States while they were in office is this just a coincidence?

Why assassinate a President? Why must everything be kept so covered up? What are they trying to hide from the American people?



http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/pres.htm

[formercia]

14. The propaganda was that it was supposed to solve the problem

Your point of money lent without interest is a point well taken.

What a 'Christian' concept. The Koran also speaks against the charging of interest.

[Marie26]

15. Isn't this a Ron Paul thing? nt

[K-W]

21. Ron Paul is an enthusiastic capitalist. EOM

[Pharaoh]

22. No

Not that the guy did'nt have some valid points.

I'm not too fond of the system at all but I'm leaning towards Obama....

[krkaufman]

24. In a sense, yes. He has derided the manipulation of our money supply.

However, I could hardly disagree more with Ron Paul's solutions.