Showing posts with label money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Money A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion (repost)

U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion
We are indebted to The Onion  for this up-to-the-minute report:

WASHINGTON - The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.

What began as a routine report before the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday ended with Bernanke passionately disavowing the entire concept of currency, and negating in an instant the very foundation of the world's largest economy. "Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we.... if we " said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. "You know what? It doesn't matter. None of this so-called 'money' really matters at all."

"It's just an illusion," a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. "Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless." According to witnesses, Finance Committee members sat in thunderstruck silence for several moments until Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) finally shouted out, "Oh my God, he's right. It's all a mirage. All of it - the money, our whole economy - it's all a lie!" Screams then filled the Senate Chamber as lawmakers and members of the press ran for the exits, leaving in their wake aisles littered with the remains of torn currency.

As news of the nation's collectively held delusion spread, the economy ground to a halt, with dumbfounded citizens everywhere walking out on their jobs as they contemplated the little green drawings of buildings and dead white men they once used to measure their adequacy and importance as human beings.

At the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday morning's opening bell echoed across a silent floor as the few traders who arrived for work out of habit looked up blankly at the meaningless scrolling numbers on the flashing screens above.

"I've spent 25 years in this room yelling 'Buy, buy! Sell, sell!' and for what?" longtime trader Michael Palermo said. "All I've done is move arbitrary designations of wealth from one column to another, wasting my life chasing this unattainable hallucination of wealth." "What a cruel cosmic joke," he added. "I'm going home to hug my daughter."

Sources at the White House said President Obama was "still trying to get his head around all this" and was in seclusion with his coin collection, muttering "it's just metal, it's just metal" over and over again. "The president will be making a statement very soon," press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. "At the moment, though, his mind is just too blown to comment."

A few U.S. banks have remained open, though most teller windows are unmanned due to a lack of interest in transactions involving mere scraps of paper or, worse, decimal points and computer data signifying mere scraps of paper. At a Bank of America branch in Spokane, WA, curious former customers wandered aimlessly through a large empty vault, while several would-be robbers of a Chase bank in Columbus, OH reportedly put their guns down and exited the building hand in hand with security guards, laughing over the inherent absurdity of the idea of $100 bills.

Likewise, the real estate industry has all but vanished, with mortgage lenders seeing no reason to stop people from reclaiming their foreclosed-upon homes. "I don't even know what we were thinking in the first place," said former banker Nathan Collins of Brandon, MS, as he jimmyed open a door to allow a single mother and her five children to move back into their house. "A bunch of people sign a bunch of papers, and now this family has no place to live? That's just plain ludicrous."

The realization that money is nothing more than an elaborate head game seems to have penetrated the entire country: In Wilmington, DE, for instance, a collection agent reportedly broke down in joyful sobs when he informed a woman on the other end of the phone that he had absolutely no reason to harass her anymore, as her Discover Card debt was no longer comprehensible.

For some Americans, the fog of disbelief surrounding the nation's epiphany has begun to lift, with many building new lives free from the illusion of money.

"It's back to basics for me," Bernard Polk of Waverly, OH said. "I'm going to till the soil for my own sustenance and get anything else I need by bartering. If I want milk, I'll pay for it in tomatoes. If need a new hoe, I'll pay for it in lettuce."

When asked, hypothetically, how he would pay for complicated life-saving surgery for a loved one, Polk seemed uncertain. "That's a lot of vegetables, isn't it?" he said.

The Onion © 2010

[Brought to my greatly amused attention by Olivia de Haulleville. First posted 16 March 2010, reposted 25 February 2015 & 24 May 2019]


Saturday, May 24, 2025

You're Only As Rich As You Feel (revisited)

I kept receiving this as a forward and was pretty much bowled over when I saw the final graphic. Perhaps it's worth uploading as a blogpost, so the next time someone mentions a trillion dollars I'll have some sort of visual reference!

What does one TRILLION dollars look like? All this talk about "stimulus packages" and "bailouts"... A billion dollars... A hundred billion dollars... Eight hundred billion dollars... One TRILLION dollars... What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I'd take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like. We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Almost everyone has seen them, slighty fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

$100

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than ½" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for a week or two of shamefully decadent fun.

$10,000

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

$1,000,000 (one million dollars)

While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet...

$100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars)

And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere...

$1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars)

Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros. You ready for this? It's pretty surprising. Go ahead... Scroll down... Ladies and gentlemen... I give you $1 trillion dollars...
$1000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars)

Well, folks, if it's any comfort... imagine yourself stranded on a desert island. Your trillion dollars would come in real handy for starting fires. Indeed, that gigantic pile of cash would pale in significance to this bunch of bananas...
A priceless bunch of delicious, nutritious bananas
MONEY vs WEALTH

MONEY can be printed by a specially licensed banking consortium like the Federal Reserve - in which case the currency's actual worth is only the cost of paper and ink. What keeps Federal Reserve notes in circulation is sheer force of habit and people's belief in the economic strength of a superpower like America. 

WEALTH is whatever provides us a sense of well-being and nourishes us on all levels. When you're feeling a bit down, getting a warm smile from a beautiful girl you don't even know is exactly what your spirit requires to bounce back. So even receiving a gratuitous smile can be considered "wealth."

In short, MONEY does NOT equal WEALTH

Here's a good example of how far off course the "modern" world has strayed: many years ago in a remote village deep in the Amazon, ethnologists discovered a "lost" tribe that had never known money. Fruits grew abundantly around the village, fish were literally jumping in the clear streams and fresh meat was easily available from the lush surrounding jungle. Whatever the villagers wanted in the way of clothes and tools they were able to make themselves, or else barter with neighboring tribes. Children were happy and free, and the elderly were respected and well cared for. Yet this community was listed as among the poorest in the world because their "per capita income" was measured as less than USD10 a year. Contact with the outside world made these simple folk aware of what they lacked - they soon wanted radios, watches, batteries, and so on. And that's when they realized how "poor" they were.

[First posted 17 March 2009, reposted 17 March 2021]


Monday, February 13, 2017

Money As Debt ~ a short film by Paul Grignon



Paul Grignon's 47-minute animated presentation of Money As Debt  tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it all is being created. It is an entertaining way to get a very important message out. Highly recommended as a painless but hard-hitting educational tool. Every thinking person concerned with the present unsustainable monetary system on planet Earth is encouraged to circulate this viral video. Do it soon and wake everybody up - before the Final Financial Meltdown (coming real soon to a market near you!)

[First posted 18 August 2007]


Thursday, October 16, 2008

Words of Wisdom from the Golden Jackass


SLAUGHTER ON WALL STREET: 
The Heat Death of Capitalism

By Jim Willie CB (edited by Antares)

The events of the last few days continue to be remarkable, alarming, chaotic, surreal, and desperate. The globe is slowly realizing that the United States is careening toward a probable financial death experience...

Nothing has worked to date, and nothing will work in the present - not bailouts, not liquidations, not nationalizations, not papered-over fraud. The stark reality resembles a massive locomotive derailed, having run over the mountain ledge, heading downward in a freefall, subjected to the force of gravity, and ripping through a gigantic paper safety net designed to halt its crash.

THE CLOWNS IN CHARGE DO NOT REALIZE THE SYSTEM IS FLAWED AND BROKEN, AS EFFORTS TO REDOUBLE THE DEVICES ARE ALL DRAWN FROM THE SAME DEFECTIVE TOOLBAG. MAJOR BANK FAILURES, BANKRUPTCIES OF MAJOR FINANCIAL FIRMS (LIKE INSURANCE), AND INDIVIDUAL MARKET DEFAULTS... COMING VERY SOON.

Incredible events are occurring behind the scenes, the details of which would shock most people, even those who deal with the underworld.

Recall Wall Street propaganda this summer? That the US will be first to emerge from the carnage? Such lunatic promotional nonsense should be recalled when it becomes clear that the United States cannot emerge from its broken condition. The game is over, and only the enlightened realize it! What lies ahead is the tragedy of distintegration!!! That includes the nation and its very governmental structure.

As the US Economy and US bank system continues its death spiral, the US Dollar rallies, doing unspeakable ruin to US fundamentals. Recall that the tide went out along the shores in Indonesia and Thailand right before the great tsunami hit on December 26, 2004. Ditto here! The banking crisis and extreme distress that remains stubbornly unfixable in the United States urgently motivates foreigners to quickly assemble, implement, and announce a replacement world currency basket. Watch for a euro currency split soon, where Nordic version will compete viciously against the dead US Dollar.

MURDER AS AN OPTION?

In the last month, numerous emergency weekend meetings took place to work toward bailouts, mergers, recapitalization, slush fund grants, and government action. The deadlines struck me as odd, that they must resolve before Sunday night when Japanese markets opened. Why? Without any doubt, the Bank for International Settlements ordered the corrupt American Trillion-dollar Conmen to clean up their banks, let some fail, merge others, and agree to bailouts using government money, just get it done! Without any doubt, creditors have been pulling the lines to Wall Street firms. The grapevine has provided some new juicy information.

What option do defrauded banks, big financial firms, and big hedge fund firms have when they are victims of mega-fraud, when US regulatory bodies are in the Wall Street hip pocket, and when US law enforcement is more interested in sex charges for prosecutors than actual enforcement of laws on the books against fraud?

THEY MIGHT THREATEN MURDER OF KEY EXECUTIVES BEHIND FRAUD IF NO MEANINGFUL RESTITUTION.

That is what! The list of objects for murder threats might easily include a dozen Wall Street CEOs, CFOs, and their salesmen UFOs. Threats might even come from Sovereign Wealth Fund managers. One name cited was the Blackstone CEO, extended from Chinese losses. Be sure to know that any sudden death would be called a heart attack. You know? The type of heart attack that occurs after a bullet enters the cranium. Few tears would flow.

Imagine a man whose bones are turned into mush, trying to walk. That is the economy with insolvent banks. The man becomes a body without a heart and blood circulation when short-term credit is absent. The commercial side requires it for supply of food, gasoline, housewares, hardware, building materials, and more. Imagine riots for toilet paper, let alone gasoline and food! The financial side requires it for supply of ATM cash, credit card usage, and even payroll income. A heart attack is not a proper analogy. More like a science fiction movie where the victim is vaporized, or is burned suddenly into a heap of plasma.


The problems from debt collapse due to debt-related ills inside banks cannot be solved by more debt instruments, plain and simple. The solutions must, if they are legitimate, involve new income sources, like manufacturing returned to the US soil, like a national grand initiative for infrastructure betterment, like better agriculture management of ethanol solutions, like broader export successfully landing abroad from US firms. The dumbstruck fools running US bank policy are forced to resort to their own failed toolbag. How effective will lower interest rate be, if only another attraction to a debt device? Not much! And the failure to revive and resuscitate will shock the system very soon.

ACCELERATION OF EVENTS

Each week contains its disaster. Each week has included its own deadline timetable to reach agreement on resolution of this or that. Each week is replete with new signals of contagion or breakdown. Recall US Fed Chairman Bernanke, the smartest idiot on the planet, who claimed a year ago that no contagion would result from the spark of the subprime mortgage lit fuse. Expect such braindead calls from a university professor, burdened by the limitations of his credentials. Absolute contagion occurred instead, in total defiance to his orthodox heresy. Yesterday the big news saw the United Kingdom nationalize almost their entire banking system with $50 billion, including the venerable Lloyds TSB. Regard these moves as firm evidence of the death of the Anglo-Sphere. Today's big news is that Iceland collapsed, rescued in part so far by $4.5 billion from Russia, not Europe. As time passes, the financial structures weaken further, certain to break in central connective tissue, as well as in extended sections.


My analogy of the giant locomotive train hurtling down over the mountainside ledge fits here. Apply gravity as the acceleration force, and inertia to administer pain. A bright friend, not the least bit in the dark on current events, claimed that stupid American officials believe the runaway locomotive can actually fly.

THIRD WORLD, DEAD AHEAD

Few in the United States seem to realize that what is happening is the magnificent unstoppable event whereby an inevitable shift of tectonic financial plates is underway. The result will be that the entire system called the United States, financial and commercial, will suddenly find itself tragically lodged in the Third World. The chief traits will be major shortages, high prices, absent capital for credit, diverted supply of commodities, poor investment opportunities, massive flight of capital, corrupt law enforcement, widespread violence, despair among the public, horrific loss of wealth, and a severe brain drain as intellectual talent abandons the nation. Oh yes, carpetbaggers will arrive soon, and perhaps even an historically unprecedented wave of colonists from Asia, Russia, and Arab nations. Those who own the failed credit during default make ALL THE RULES.

LOST INTEGRITY OF US FINANCIAL MARKETS

The revived short rule restriction has contributed to yet another severe black eye to the reputation of the United States. Its financial markets are already considered the playground for Wall Street syndicates, with criminal behavior protected by the system. Foreigners mock our markets for their grotesque unfairness. Insider trading, 3pm rescues, program trading, naked shorts, controlled news sources, conflicts of interest between news networks and advertisers, justification of fraudulent accounting under pretense of national security, these all contribute to the cesspool image.

THE LEHMAN FAILURE WAS A SIGNIFICANT CON JOB

It was planned, calculated, designed, and executed like a criminal act. The Wall Street criminals needed to test the system on credit default swap risk, needed a sink hole from which to hand $138 billion to JP Morgan on a reloaded. It was carried out pre-dawn on a weekend before a hapless bankruptcy judge who found no objection. He probably did not look hard, was maybe bribed. The criminals were able to observe the consequences from senior bond holders who were illegally denied due process in the bankruptcy procedure. The event was a failure called a merger, complete with a huge handout given to JP Morgan so it can continue its illegal enterprise.

JP Morgan headquarters on Wall Street, New York City (photo: Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates LLC)

The real big deception is that JP Morgan was probably within a hair from its own bankruptcy , and therefore required a sacrificial lamb to feed from elaborate entrails. The sad fact is that the Wall Street consolidators need another Lehman-type event soon, since more reloads will be required. The French finance minister publicly decried the Lehman bankruptcy, saying letting it go was a major error. He might not be aware of the Wall Street crime syndicate need to cover up evidence, or the need to create a sink hole for a concealed JP Morgan reload, or the need to illicitly pack printed money into the massive credit default swap crater. Recall that numerous boxes of documents were hurriedly removed from Lehman offices that crucial fateful weekend. No watchful eye by police, no cordon of yellow tape to protect a crime scene, nothing. Another Fascist Business Model privilege that does not make America strong.

The US banks are destroyed, and that should kill the entire US Economy in the foreseeable future. Few seem willing to accept this stark ugly fact. Housing prices continue down, and that assures continued lethal pressure on bank assets. That keeps the destructive process relentless and very powerful, like deep knife cuts to a patient lying on a hospital gurney, while being shuttled from room to room for futile treatment. Much more destruction lies ahead, like with at least two more Wall Street firms, many regional banks, and a few insurance companies. Few seem willing to accept this stark ugly fact. Instead they look like idiotic children gazing upon the wrong traffic lights, as truck after truck runs them over in the middle of the road. Little do they realize, PEOPLE ARE ROADKILL.

If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Airlines stock one year ago, you would have $49 today. If you had purchased $1000 of AIG stock one year ago, you would have $33 today. If you had purchased $1000 of Lehman Brothers stock one year ago, you will have $0 today. However, if you had purchased $1000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling, you would have received $214 today at redemptions. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-KEG Plan.