Freeconomy Blog
Sat
14 Mar
Stop giving the banks a hard time!
| 4 comments |
The banks have had a rough year in many respects; their share prices have plummeted, they have had to go cap in hand to the government and they are rife with toxic assets, bad debts, and greed. And apparently the worst is still yet to come, as many of the root causes of the credit crunch have still not been dealt with. Yet they still give themselves huge bonuses regardless of the fact that many of them have made losses of billions of pounds!
It is obviously true that I am not a fan of banks, to say the very least, given the fact that I am not even a fan of money. And I think there is a lot of Karma in the fact that the least ethical banks – those who sell weapons to dictators, fund chains such as McDonalds and organisation such as GlaxoSmithKline and Proctor and Gamble, are the ones that came off worst; apparently so-called ethical banks such as Triodos weren't too badly effected at all.
However I do not agree with the abuse that they have been getting from the public in light of the revelations from the last six months. Its not that I don't agree with what is being said, more often than not, I do. Its just that I don't think that the people who have been outraged by it all have much right to be outraged.
People give out about banks at the best of times, let alone when they have acted as outrageously as they have done over the last few years. One of the main criticisms come when people realise that the banks loan out approximately 10 times the amount of cash they have deposited in their accounts. This means that if everyone wanted their cash at the same time, as happened with Northern Rock and which is termed ' a run on the bank', then only roughly 10% of people would get their money.
Banks therefore have a license to create something out of thin air and then charge people interest for the privilege of using, what is in reality, a non-existent product. That is the bit that really gets people.
However I often wonder where do people think this money comes from, and goes? People don't complain about the bank when they walk out of their bank managers office with a loan agreed for that new car, overseas holiday, bigger house or plasma screen TV. And where do people think that arms dealers, factory farm and sweatshop owners and the like get their capital? The fact is that, through our interest payments, agreed charges and capital deposited, we are funding all of the above and driving irreversible climate change, environmental destruction and resource depletion forwards. If they didn't loan out at a factor of ten times their deposits, you would have about 90% less stuff.
Whenever you take a loan, you are in effect consuming something now that you will have to work hard for later; you are also contributing to the planet being liquidised at a much faster speed than if credit didn't exist.
If you want to show your outrage, stop moaning about them and instead just stop buying their loans, stop letting them use your money to fund all sorts of destruction, and as far as you can don't give them a penny; this, in effect, will cut off their oxygen supply.
What would I do? It is very unlikely your employer will pay you in cash. What you can do is to withdraw every penny from your current account – bar anything you need for direct debits etc – as soon as you get paid and put it in a safer place, such as under the mattress. On top of that, if you are going to a small independent shop and usually pay by card, think again. Every time you do that the shopkeeper loses up to 50p, which over the course of a years trading is enough to put the independent retailer out of business. The banks and credit card institutions instead receive this 50p, some of which will be used to fund actions I am sure most of you would disagree and even go out protesting about. So withdraw the cash from a free ATM and pay the retailer in cash.
And if you can switch to an 'ethical' bank, if that isn't an oxymoron.
I know this can be difficult, but most things that are important these days are. Pay off your loans and resolve to never take another one again. That way you are making your most effective stand – talk without action never achieves anything.
THE FREECONOMY BLOG is written by Mark Boyle, founder of The Freeconomy Community. If you want to respond, debate or ask questions, please just comment below; you will have to sign in first.
Comment on this Post:
Des Troy comments ...
That which you despise the most in others, is what you despise in yourself.
The terrible truth is that we are all greedy and as you point out Mark, we all fueled the catastrophe that happened to the financial sector.
The good news is that nearly all the money that was 'lost' didn't exist in the first place; we only thought we were richer than we actually are.
Good post. These things need to be said over and over again.
Robert Howes comments ...
I'm not sure Mark's advice to put your cash under the mattress is a good idea. I once buried some cash under the soil inside my shed and recovered it later when I needed it. But the best way to sink money in land is to buy the land with the money. That is one of the best investments possible, if not the very best.
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I have bought a dozen properties, houses, shops, industrial land and agricultural land. My money is safe and I have somewhere to grow my businesses as well as my food.
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Contact me for advice and if you want to visit me here in wales, UK and stay for free, as a volunteer. No arduous duties, very free and easy, and I'll introduce to to a variety of ideas that will be helpful to you, and opportunities to make money to buy more land and so on.
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And by the way, if you have looked at these get rich schemes and wondered if forex spread betting, for instance, is worth getting into, I can tell you it is not an easy way to make money, but it's a very easy way to lose your money. You have to learn a lot of stuff to be a successful trader.
Contact me at robertcircle1@yahoo.co.uk, or ring +44 (0)1792 792 442
Bob
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binnimanni comments ...
I come across this story that is also a true story. It happened to a native american tired to live in cities and decide to go back in the reservation and learn how to heal people with plants. There he find a "medicine man" who accept to teach him what he knows about it. He refuse any payement in money, he want only a deer as a offer. And he want that the deer has to be cought and killed with a stone knife made by the student, but first he has to ask the stone the permission to become a knife. The guy has no idea how to fascion a stone knife and been educated in western schools has little faith of how asking a stone the permit to become a knife has any input in his mission. So off he goes and repetedley he fail to achieve to make the knife til out of desperation he sits on the pile of shaddered stone and after few hours he find the ackward courage to ask a stone if it wants to turn in a knife and as like magic every stroke he gives to it turn to jiust the right one and he got his knife. But now he realize that to kill a deer with a knife he need to get very close, to grab it with is arms infact. That is impossible. But after the frustation and the tought that the man doesn't want to teach him after all, he start to stalk some deer. Days passes. And he learn all about them. Where they eat, drink, play, roam, and sleep. After a while he spot a cub that limp and at noon it get under the shade of a low branch of a tree. So he climb on that branch and wait. then he let himself fall on the deer cub. But althought the deer is only a non adult yet and limps still its got lots of strengh and stabbing it with a stone knife it gets lots of time time before he finally kills it. There he is: blody exaust, with the loud screams of the little deer in his ear still. He fill disgusted. Angry at is action and to have accepted that task. After all he wanted only to help people using plant without sacrificing no life. So in anger he carries the deer to the man drops it to its feets and walk away saying that he doe3sn't want have nothing to do with it all. The old man calmly replay he is now ready to learn about the healing property of plant, "just remember that every time he will cut a plant, a herb he is taking a life" and he should feel the same as he felt when he took the life of the deer. No matter if the plants can't run or theyr blood isn't red spilling on us we take a life nonetheless. Stay with them, stay where they live sit and listen what they have to say to you and you have to be very quite because they talk very softly
After this I'm not saying that eating meat is necessary, but to think that not to to do so you are not bringing no suffering to no one is a very simplistic point of view of the world.
All is alive and we have to take a living being a consciousness thats how we grow phisically and conscioussely.
We are all related. Long life honey in your heart.
Treavor comments ...
Well said. I don't even watch TV and I think I tend to be convinced sometimes that corrupt corporations and banks caused this downfall. We think the power has fallen out of our hands and that none of this could possibly be our own fault. None of these things could happen if there were not a demand for it.
Our love of shiny rocks has turned down a very obsessed path indeed! (:
