569: "I fancy that the great New York (banking) institutions have more skeletons in their cupboards than anyone yet knows about for certain, and that their concealed anxieties cramp their action more than is admitted."
Keynes. 1930. "A Note on Economic Conditions in the United States: A Memorandum for the Economic Advisory Council." CW 20, pp. 561-94.
“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it." John Kenneth Galbraith
ReplyDeleteIt is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Henry Ford
The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks. Lord Acton
The modern Banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banks can in fact inflate, mint and unmint the modern ledger-entry currency. Major Angus
The message is plain enough, and we have ignored it for too long: The great, centralised economic entities of our time do not come into rural places in order to improve them by 'creating jobs.' They come to take as much of value as they can take, as cheaply and as quickly as they can take it. They are interested in 'job creation' only so long as the jobs can be done more cheaply by humans than machines. They are not interested in the good health - economic, natural, or human - of any place on this earth. If you should undertake to appeal or complain to one of these great corporations on behalf of your community, you would soon discover something most remarkable: These organisations are organised expressly for the evasion of responsibility. They are structures in which, as my brother says 'the buck never stops.' The buck is processed up the hierarchy until finally it is passed to the 'shareholders,' who characteristically are too widely diverse, too poorly informed, and too unconcerned to be responsible for anything. The ideal of the modern corporation is to be anywhere (in terms of its own advantage) and nowhere (in terms of local accountability). The message ... in other words, is, Don't expect favours from your enemies.
Wendell Berry
The definition of a corporation, when that word is used to denote a business that has been incorporated, is an organization whose share owners are shielded from the liabilities which may be incurred by that corporation. It was at one time, and still on occassion, referred to as a limited liability corporation. Ltd., remember? Inc. is so much less offensive and so much more deceptive regarding the purpose of forming the incorporation to begin with. The execs make all the decision, take the lion's share of the earnings, but bear no personal responsibility for the deeds of the corporation, other than defrauding the corporation itself. No need for that since the advent of the Compensation Committee, a group of fellow executives sworn to the preservation and enhancement of the wealth of the mangerial class. Some thing about mutual back scratching.
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