May I propose a perhaps controversial, and worrying suggestion? Are these investors... the people RESPONSIBLE... us? Is the real issue that none of us understand the intricacies of the world economic system, but we still have nice, secure, responsible things like PENSIONS and BANK ACCOUNTS? We entrust our assets (well unfortunately, I don't - I don't have a pension) to pension providers because what we want to buy is low risk, good return investment for our old age. The problem is that, even if we read the small print from our pension fund, and attend endless meetings with our "independent financial advisers" we're simply not equipped to understand the nuances and side-effects of our investments will have. I suggest that the world financial system is sufficiently dynamic and complex to be beyond human understanding, EVEN IF you make a career out of studying it. So at that meeting we look our financial adviser in the eye, and say "Hey, let's cut to the chase - is this investment going to fund wars in foreign countries? Is it going to bankroll landmine dealers and cigarette companies? No? And is it going to make a reasonable return and be safe for my retirement? Yes?" Job done. That's the limit of the "due diligence" a layman CAN apply. I think I own a few hundred pounds' worth of shares (part of some bank restructuring, I think...) but I've never voted at a shareholders' meeting. I've no idea who or what I'd be voting for, or what the implications of my vote would be. I've not even delegated my votes to an informed proxy - because I don't know what their approach or attitude is - and I have no idea how to find out. And no - I don't have time to make a career out of it. Hell, I don't even know what those shares are worth - less than 500 UKP, I gather... But if it all evaporates, I wouldn't be surprised - I have better things to think about. I, and many (most?) of my fellow shareholders and pension holders, are asleep at the financial wheel. And we haven't got the time or expertise, or information to wake up. We've ended up in a situtation which is so complex, so interlinked, and so incomprehensible (note: "incomprehensible" - not "uncomprehended") that we simply cannot make informed moral choices. We're not the problem - our context is. Best Regards, James ===== On 14/12/11 00:41, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis wrote:
Gordon, I recently saw a documentary in which one economist, probably from the ECB, said that they were trying to track down the debt of the European countries so as to erase debt in situations in which 2 parties had a debt to each other. He said that they failled miserably in their efforts.
2011/12/14 Gordon Cook <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
thank you Patrick. I suppose you are a few steps ahead of me and i generally LIKE what you say. However my questions still stands. Under the current system *who are these investors?*
I suspect that the answer is we really don't know and i also suspect that the current system is constructed so that we will never find out. Since the current system has no transparency we are left at the mercy of a system that because it contains some legitimate users. Coupon clipping grandmother perhaps allows market manipulators to take over and pillage an economy in the manner that used to require an invading army.
Is there anyway to find out?
Has anyone of more so called professional standing than you or i suggested that it would be worthwhile to find out?
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On Dec 13, 2011, at 5:32 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
Investing for Profit incents scarcity and destruction. This is the way of Capitalism.
Investing for Product incents abundance and peace. This the way forward.
Profit is undefined when Product is ROI.
Only Conumers as Investors can accept Product as the return for risk.
We will forever have internal conflicts and the seemingly inescapable paradoxes until we choose Consumers as our Investors, and pay them with Product while never needing to sell that Product except during Surplus.
In that case, when Surplus is sold, we should collect the Profit from those latecomers and treat it as their own Investment in Use-Value production, so that all Consumers incrementally gain the co-ownership needed to insure they have the Products they need without resorting to the use of Tokens.
One of these days someone will understand this message, and then we can begin to reclaim our planet, but not before.
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--
Sincerely yours, Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis
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