Tag Archives: bank corruption

Bitcoin, Economic Resistance, and Justice

“After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.”

-Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

I love Thoreau’s unapologetic diatribe against the state, and the banal evil of the hollow men of governments–I cannot recommend more highly to read Civil Disobedience. More than a century and a half ago, Thoreau could plainly see the preposterousness of the idea of a just government. Governments are institutions amongst men, and derive their power and justice from the magnanimity of the men within those institutions. When these institutions of government are taken over by cowards and make their objective to destroy the very constitutional rights from which their power is formed; such organizations can no longer be called legitimate. The whole world knows of the crimes of the American Empire and its axis of capitalist corruption. Now is the time to resist, and fight back before it is too late.

Direct Economic Action

I have always been one to believe that there is no revolutionary action except for direct action. Resistance is something that must be preformed at the exact time and space where injustice is occurring in order for true change to be manifested. This is deeply problematic when we live in a capitalist society that itself is the bases of injustice, exploitation, and alienation. How can one resist an entire social, political, and economic system that is based upon systematic injustice by the state working hand-in-hand with the corporate, oligarchic machinery of late capitalism? The totality, and wholeness of this vast complex of power relations finds their nexus within the legal structure of the state, seems impossible to change or resist.

That is until now.refuse-debt

Nation-States, from the most corrupt failed states, to the superpowers of China, Germany, and the United States; ALL maintain their power and control on their populations only and explicitly through the control of capital–if they cannot control the money, they cannot control the population.

If even 5% of the world’s population refuses to use their governments fiat currency; this would cause for a collapse of their unjust monetary system overnight. The governments, politicians, and capitalists who use our money to fund their wars cannot exist within the digital currency ecosystem. If you want to fight back directly, in a way that will true hurt these monsters; than withdraw your economic support for their corrupt money.

Through this single action–the rejection of using and holding fiat money–can cause for a financial collapse of the old, antiquated, corrupt system of money, while bolstering and legitimizing the new digital economy. This is a capital strike–a refusal to invest or participate in the corrupt economic structure that has left 3.5 billion people with the same amount of wealth as 85 people. I refuse to participate in this evil system, and I refuse to let these fascist use any of my labor, wealth, or exchange to support these conditions.

My revolution is now, and it is permanent–I hope you will join me.

Digital currencies will replace fiat government systems of money–it is simple too effective as a money system. At some point, be it 5, 10, or 30 years down the line, citizens across the globe will take the power of the purse away from government hands, and returning it to the people. By using new, alternative forms of money that the state does not explicitly control, people all over the world can choose to reject their government’s money systems and the endemic and systematic corruption of power enables.

If you truly want to fight back against the state and their oligarchic allies; than the most powerful action you can take is refusal. Refusing to participate in their official economy, using their money institutions, or being a cog in their machines. By refusing to use, or hold fiat currency, one can help start the process of stripping the state, and the banks they are lapdogs to, of their economic power. This single action alone can be what can take down the capitalist empires of exploitation, and return economic power to the hands of the people, where it rightfully belongs.

Student Debt Resistance

I need not to make the argument for the injustice at the price of education, nor the way that people are made into indentured servants of the state for little more than wanting to educate themselves. There is more student debt today that what the entire budget of the United States federal government was in 1965. Private profiteers, and banksters of the most unscrupulous sort, are allowed to leech profits from this debt, participating with the state in direct exploitation of students, and former students, as equitable partners with the state for this right of mass extortion. This is debt bondage in exchange for a certificate of graduation that offers one the false promise of employment upon graduation. You were scammed, and now you must repay them.

On the poverty of student life was an influential piece of writing from 1966 that helped ignite the shortly lived revolutions of May 1968. This work speaks broadly about the hope of youth for a future that was not determined by the exploitation of capitalism and the demand to fight for that future. The underlying point is that being a student is as subservient to the capitalist structure of the world today just as much as any other corporate job. So called ‘education’ within the ridged structure of capitalist universities is not education–it’s ideology. The apparent freedom of university is the iron cage of academia where the erudite elitism of the intelligentsia is a reflection of the same narrow, manufactured dialog of politics. The education systems are not about empowerment or agency, but subservience to the current superstructure of the capitalist world today.

To strike debt; to refuse to pay or service it can and will bring the whole system to a stand still. If a debt strike can be organized for people to default on student debts, or debts of all kinds at the same time, would cause for a total collapse of the monetary and banking systems–international financial contagion would be inescapable. If executed correctly it would take less than one month to see systemic economic crisis. This is the system that has sold out our future, has allowed for the total and complete destruction of the environment and millions of species, all while leaving our posterity broke and impoverished. This can only be defined as unjust and despotic. Resistance must begin somewhere, and I see no better place then here.

To Struggle

We have been taught, ingrained in a pavlovian way, to feel powerless against what seems to be an omnipotent force of the state that is fully against our struggle. It seems easier to simply give up, to not struggle, to find a way to compromise with the system as it is. We pretend that there is not a gross psychological damage that we undertake by living in this capitalist world where everything is for sale, nothing is sacred, and the largest criminals of all go free. We are permitted to have our own little fiefdom of superfluous trinkets and toys, in exchange for our compliance and silence with the machinery of capitalism. We are told by others and ourselves that this is a fair exchange only to find ourselves sobbing inconsolably on top of our piles of trinkets; knowing the price of our estrangement from our innermost self. 

RevolutionarySuicide now one of the leading cause of premature death in the united states, and depression is the world’s leading debilitating illness. The estrangement of meaning and purpose from everyday live; ripped away and replaced with the meaningless, soul-sucking existence of bullshit jobs, and vacuous social connections has launched us headlong into the society of the spectacle unhinging itself. The world makes visible the primacy of commodities dominating all that is lived. The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because its movement is identical to the estrangement of men among themselves and in relation to their global product.

It is nothing short of childish to not see the mental toil and exhaustion from living under this despotism. We must valiantly and passionately strike against this way of life that has robbed our lives of dignity, meaning, and purpose for far too long. Inside of each one of us is the drive to zealously seek for something better–the hope of building a better tomorrow is what drives us, and this force alone can change the world. The revolutionary struggle patiently awaits us; whispering to us to rise and taken our proper place in chronos of the liberation of mankind.

To Take Justice

Justice must be taken. It will not be freely given by these governments, or the political institutions that are part of them. That request was made in the streets years ago and it was met with the heavy truncheon of the state’s fascist police armies. Protesting is little more than being a lamb to the slaughter, displaying that political reform is impossible. If we are to have justice, it must be something that we make for ourselves, and refuse to compromise on.

To directly attack capital itself is to strike at the very root and essence of our struggle. Our quest is to fracture the unholy alliance between capitalists and the state through destroying the object that unites them: fiat money. This is a direct plan of attack; an offensive and purposeful mode of resistance that as it gains momentum, it can become the revolutionary force of a general capital strike. If you want justice, than go and take it!

Refuse to accept the conditions which have been impressed upon you! Fight back and struggle against those who keep you under the bootheel of poverty and totalitarianism for their own benefits. Disparage the cowardly fascists who sell your security, freedom, and rights for their own temporary safety. No one will come and tell you fight back against an entire system that seeks to exploit and alienate you from your own being and worth–you must find that inside of yourself and will-to-power the meaning to fight back and resist! The commanders of this economic and political system are cowards and fascists who care nothing for the meaning of justice, liberty, or freedom. They are scare and pathetic little men who allow for their morals and ethics to be commanded by others as thoughtless machines. Allow for the labor and wealth that you command to be a friction against the machine, and part of the great liberation of the digital economy away from the bloody and grimy hands of the state and the capitalist pigs that control them.

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Next: Financial Insurrection

Justice Malcolm X

 

The Barbarians of Government

In a recent New York Times Op-ed “Bits and Barbarism,” Paul Krugman resumed his bashing of bitcoin, gold, and everything that is not government issued money. He presents an idea of how bitcoin and gold are ‘barbaric’ forms of money because of the resources that are expended to obtain them, while government ability to create money is good because it can spend that money to create positive economic output. The irony of Paul’s argument is he completely fails to see the barbarism of the United States, its imperial military, and the way that government money creation empowers such barbarism. Paul wants for the government to be our savior, but fails to see that governments created the economic situation we are in today. Bitcoin provide an exit from this tyranny that men like Paul cannot see because of their entrenched position within the interest of the wealthy from atop his ivory towers.

Paul thinks that the government has a serious vested interest in creating full employment and encouraging economic activity. However, when we look at the political-economic structure in this country, it is clear that something else is happening. In 2012 less than 32,000 people accounted for 28% of all political donations in 2012–that’s almost 0.01% of the population getting about 1/3 of the political voice of all the other voters combine. J.P. Morgan Chase, one of the richest companies in the world, has spent more than $100 million dollars on lobbying and political donations, and this has paid off for them handsomely. The International Monetary Fund estimates that J.P Morgan Chase receives about $14 billion dollars a year in subsidies–about 140x as much as they spent on political manipulation.

When we look at these figures we must understand that this is how the political system works. No amount of hope or objections will change that. Paul seems to think that creating positive economic change is simply about creating sufficient will power to create that change. He fails to see how the whole political system has been compromised by none other than the heroic government that he wants to see change it.

Now that we understand where Paul is coming from, we can address some of the points in his article.

Gold

Krugman opens his article with talking about the human rights violations that are occurs in gold mines, like the Porgera gold mine in Papua New Guinea. He then goes on to talk about how the desire for gold is to blame for such gross human rights violations, but fails to point out that this mine he mentioned is managed by the Canadian mining company Placer Dome. Paul seems to think that the western government of the world have some vested interest in preventing human rights violations. If that is so, than why would they not come down on companies that are facilitating it?  To most of us it is pretty obvious–governments get kickbacks in the form of lobbying and political donations, in exchange for allowing large corporations to violate human rights abroad. It is disingenuous to talk about human rights violations, and then turn around and defend the governments that allow for those violations to occur.

Bitcoin

Paul then moves on to talk about how bitcoin mining engages in a similar wasted expenditure of energy similar to gold mining. He actually sounds like he really doesn’t understand how the block reward is distributed, which could be part of the problem. Paul does not understand the value of a P2P digital payment system that is out of the control of governments. He does not even see how it could have value. To him, bitcoin is just another commodity money like gold, which also should not have value.

This is critically important to understanding the elitist world view that Paul presents. Paul writes for the NYT, went to Yale for his undergrad, and M.I.T. for his Ph.d, and is a professor at Princeton. I’m sure that he has never been on the wrong side of the law, nor would he ever understand why you would be. He believe in the goodness of this government because he has always gotten the goodness of this government because of the elite position he occupies in society. Trying to tell him that maybe we need financial privacy because the government is proven to be corrupt and thieving doesn’t make sense to him–to him, these are the good guys, so why would you ever want a way to defend yourself from them?

Fiat

Paul then move on to talk about fiat money, and how in theory burying money and allowing for companies to struggle to extract the money would be a way to create real economic output. He uses this analogy to display that the extraction process of gold creates real economic output, in the same way that burying money could. He does this to show that the government can use their power of seigniorage (creating money from nothing) to create real economic output.

As true as this theory is, it is not the way that the governments have used their power of seigniorage. Instead this power has been used to give free money to the wealthiest organizations in the world: banks.

In Paul’s fantasy world, this is providing banks with the capital that they can then pass on to the little guy to create economic activity. What is really happening is the banks are just fattening themselves with free money in order to have the highest stock returns in recent history.

Government Role

Paul then moves on to quote Adam Smith on how gold and silver are ‘dead stocks’ to animate how wealth gets tied up in precious metals and then sits around doing nothing. What is very odd about this is if you read “The Wealth of Nations” you’ll see that this idea of gold and silver being a ‘dead stock’ is because gold and silver are hard to circulate. Smith saw paper money as being a technology–an innovation that allowed for all of the value of gold or silver to move about through a paper medium.

In many ways, bitcoin is the fusion of the ‘dead stock’ of precious metals, and the circulatory power of fiat money. Smith knew that gold and silver were the bases of the mercantilist world that he lived in, but he saw how damaging the hoarding of gold and silver was to the wealth of the nation because it wasn’t doing anything. This is why he thought that paper money was a good–though imperfect–method of engaging the value of the gold and silver. Smith states,

“The judicious operations of banking, by substituting paper in the room of a great part of this gold and silver, enable the country to convert a great part of this dead stock into active and productive stock.”

Gold itself was not the problem, it was making gold into an active stock that could be used everyday that was the problem, and bitcoin solves this problem.

Near the end of the article Paul asks, “So why are we tearing up the highlands of Papua New Guinea to add to our dead stock of gold and, even more bizarrely, running powerful computers 24/7 to add to a dead stock of digits?” To me, this actually displays Paul’s lack of understand of how bitcoin works, because unlike gold, bitcoin is not a ‘dead stock.’ It is clearly used as a medium of exchange, while at the same time being storage of value, hence fusing the idea of how fiat money and gold have classically worked.

Paul concludes the article with this:

Talk to gold bugs and they’ll tell you that paper money comes from governments, which can’t be trusted not to debase their currencies. The odd thing, however, is that for all the talk of currency debasement, such debasement is getting very hard to find. It’s not just that after years of dire warnings about runaway inflation, inflation in advanced countries is clearly too low, not too high. Even if you take a global perspective, episodes of really high inflation have become rare. Still, hyperinflation hype springs eternal.

Bitcoin seems to derive its appeal from more or less the same sources, plus the added sense that it’s high-tech and algorithmic, so it must be the wave of the future.

But don’t let the fancy trappings fool you: What’s really happening is a determined march to the days when money meant stuff you could jingle in your purse. In tropics and tundra alike, we are for some reason digging our way back to the 17th century.

This is just a lie. $1000 today is equal to the purchasing power of $353 dollar in 1980–which I would say is a hell of a lot of debasement. Furthermore, how is an inflation rate of +10% in 28 countries ‘rare’? What men like Paul fail to understand is that the government is not our savior, but a tyrant.

All of the economic woes of today could be end with the stroke of a pen from our government. The government could build huge public works programs, nationalize the banks, and take homes from the banks and give them to homeless.

But they don’t.

They don’t because there is no economic incentive for them to care about the poor, about the slow death of the economy for the middle class, or of even acting like they want to help us. The average American’s net worth has dropped 8 percent during the past seven years, while members of Congress got, on average, 15 percent richer. The only explanation for congress members having on average about 10 time the average wealth of americans, is that their corruption offers them special privileges, at the expense of everyone else.

This is why people are choosing commodity moneys over fiat money. We see the criminals that these people are, and the way that they are destroying the true wealth and industriousness of this nation. We want a money they cannot control, because they have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted to control the wealth of a nation. Don’t let the rambling of a foolish man in a professors clothing fool you–the governments of the world seek to be good masters, but they seek to be your master.

The Hope of Bitcoin

The world is a screwed up place and things for many do not seem to be getting better. The U.S. Federal government is dysfunctional beyond repair, with 85% of Americans disapprove of Congress, and the total integrity of the United States being called into questing from the President’s repeated lies and support for the NSA spying. Food Stamp usage is at an all-time high with nearly 48 million people on food stamps, which even that the federal government is slashing that program back, Mean while, it is becoming more and more clear that the Federal Reserve may not be able to service their $4 Trillion dollar deficit, and may also need a tax payer bail out. All in all, the United States is has monumental problems in front of it, and there is no one to lead us out of this mess. We are Screwed.

The Global Stage

The Global stage looks even more bleak. Europe is clearly entering into another major depression, with deflationary pressure forcing down the value of the Euro. Considering that some countries already have +20% unemployment, Europe is entering into a more major and sever economic crisis than the one it is in today. China is bloated with foreign currency loans, which could easily spin out of control and drag the west down with it. The Indian economy is the weakest it has been in 10 years, and does not look like it shall be recovering soon. Argentina is also looking at getting back on the currency crisis merry-go-round, with their foreign currency reserves dwindling and confidence plummeting. All in all, the global economy looks like it is heading for another Great Depression.

Thank God for Bitcoin

Despite all of these horrors going on in the world, I’ve seen my savings increase by more than 200% in the last year–and it looks poised to go up another 200% over the next year. Bitcoin as a storage of wealth I believe to be a relatively safe investment because of its liquidity–I can cash out all of my savings in less than an hour–though I never world. Bitcoin is just too good of a savings instrument in a world where governments can legally allow for banks to steal from you. It is clear that the majority of the governments in the world are nepotistic, corrupt, oligarchic alliances among corporations, bankers, and crooked politicians, who have no interest in you, your friends, family, community, or economic prosperity.

That is why bitcoin is so powerful–it takes back the power of having independent money that cannot be controlled or manipulated. This is money that has value because of its utility of being able to send money anywhere in the world in under one hour, but also from its built-in scarcity. You have the assurance of knowing that there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins created, and you can also know what the monetary supply will be at any point in time. This means that bitcoins are pretty much impossible to counterfeit.

All of the powerful features of bitcoin that got it to the success that we are seeing today is part of what makes it such a powerful savings vehicle. For the first time in one hundred years, people have a commodity money that is not controlled by the state, or their corrupt allies. There is a huge and powerful opportunity for those of us that are involved in the globalized society that is the internet, to create our own economic prosperity together. It is clear that we are doing that with the epic rise in the price of each bitcoin, along with the multitude of products, services, and number of business that are starting to accept bitcoins.

What indicates to me that this is not a bubble is that there is very, very real cost savings that bitcoin is offering. So much so that bitcoin has an almost-zero transaction cost, and when compared to fiat currencies, it has a negative transaction cost! It is obvious for anyone who looks at the macroeconomic statistics of what the cost of governance is compared to bitcoin, which has no cost of governance. Thus we find ourselves using a currency that is simply more efficient in all ways over fiat currency.

Final thoughts

Everyone, even those heavily involved in bitcoin generally say, “Only invest that which you can afford to lose.” I agree to an extent. Where I disagree is the idea that your 401K, savings account, or cash in hand is any safer. It’s not, and frankly over the next 10 years, I would call those investments dangerous. Simply look at what has happened over the last 5 years, and look at the direction we are heading for the next 5 years. Things are NOT looking up, and investing with the vast majority of the world means that you will stuck in their luxury liner as it is going down. The global economy is slowing down faster than it has any time in modern history. The days of 4% unemployment will never return–we have reached the end of growth, and when the house of cards falls, it will be spectacular. For your own safety, I advise everyone to invest just $100 and see what it does for you over the next 6 months. Just watch it and see what you think at the end of the 6 months, I guarantee you will be happy with yourself.