Avarice, Greed, Usury. The Profit Game? America’s Game?

By Les Porter

“Resetting” The Limits of Greed? Come on! History.

Limits on Greed? (You should “think” about this.)

Greed, American style: This whole economic meltdown began as a game whose importation we Americans resisted, through various Presidents. If Alexander Hamilton had lived, he might have been more insightful than to allow the “plan,” --the constitution-- and its amendments to be subverted by the International Banking Cartel.

But then again, probably not. Alexander Hamilton was a game-player, a “gamer;” a Gambler, indeed. He did not have to meet Burr for a meaningless, and fatal game. But he did. (Feminine Honor uses no duels, and is a completely different critter than the Warrior Honor of the masculine psyche. But I digress.)

Alexander Hamilton’s gamer-streak, his gambler-streak, might have allowed the foreign banks their destructive footing, much, much earlier in the American existence.

Both Americas, after discovery, always encapsulated in “full,” the visions of the “profit illusion.” The “spices”, the “Cities of Gold,” were an early part of the Americas. These exploitations of the “New World” were the risks and gambles of the European monarchs and their constantly warring nation states, and “monied” minions.

America began as a place for the workers, not for the wealthy.

This profit subversion was opposed by Jefferson, by Jackson, by Lincoln -- and was never something new-nation-American’s wanted. But the feudal Banks carefully contrived to see it set up as a game in our America. Read about the installation of the “world’s rulers,” and how they conspired to tap the vast potential wealth of the North American Continent. The Colonies were established as risky ventures for the greedy of Europe. This has always been about exploitation – and even now the profit illusion is also wrapped up in modern trade.

The following links will help you understand how we reached this point. That is, where we are.

http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/history_article.html

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/03/born-of-a-panic.html You’ll have to copy and paste this link into your browser. It works.

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr091002b.htm

http://www.reformation.org/federal-reserve.html

The above link is probably the most accurate characterization of our situation -- and it is a “game” we actually can quit playing!

Is this “greed” part of Human Nature? Do we all have it? No. But some have it to the degree that if enough of them play the game – they can endanger the planet. Not just the human idea of losing everything to be a pauper – but damage to the physical structure of the planet earth. Endangering all.

[below were two "exponential" kinds of statements, xomba destroyed)
Avarice = (1 unit Greed + (Usury)orbits around sol

Avarice = (Greed)greed .

This Avarice, Greed, and Usury – “game” of “profit” is really not human nature. It is, however, the “very nature” of an unfortunate few humans. Well, maybe more than a few.

Profit is a human meme. (Say it as “Meem” or “Meam” to rhyme with Dream or Cream.)

It is a moderately contagious meme that has superficially and virtually infected parts of the psyche of every human on the planet. It is a bad meme, and possibly can destroy us if we let it. There are other bad memes infecting us, as well. You probably have differing degrees of infection and infestations. Most are harmless. Some are not.

You and I both know there are thousands of schemers, skimmers and scammers on Wall Street. And there are also thousands more in "money changing places" all over the world. Usury is their unsavory God. "Feed your Greed" is their motto. And of course, they have not yet pushed their avarice as far as it will go, for it knows only the bounds of "belief," of guile, and gullibility. They continue now to push it; they continue to link it to their way of looking at reality. They use the meme of Avarice as though it is the end of all quests. They want you to “buy into” the concept of a Reset -- a means by which they can continue these species-endangering activities. And you "buy in?" Wanting to be a part of it?

Perhaps our species needs to begin to understand the practical limits to Avarice. That is, to survive, our species must step up to the plate and pinch the greedy.

I suggest we now must grasp that the only thing of un-ending value toward which we can strive is not the food of avarice or usury compounded through time, but rather what we need to “know.” Knowledge is the only item of true value worth accumulating. Wisdom may or may not grow out of sufficient knowledge, but wisdom itself is a system of choices in the face of knowledge, and experience does not guarantee wisdom. It does help, though.

However. The skimmers, schemers and scammers, the accumulators of money and wealth, have attempted to have us all play their game. In the game they have developed, they have created instruments of your destruction -- almost in numberless quantities. And some of us have joined their games, legions of us -- and some have not.

In EVERY instance, these people do not care one iota about you -- only about taking money away from you. It is simple, and it is in everything -- ubiquitous. (Hey, I gotta make a buck -- is the justification.)

It amazes some of us at least, that this little “game” of future value and compound interest sucks in so many people, and that so very much "good" is attributed to its existence. The ONLY thing it does is exploit you, and encourage you to exploit others and the Earths environment. The common statement is that “modern society” would not be possible or “good” without the greed and avarice which the current milieu uses to confuse the most of us to play their game.

[Even Alan Greenspan suggest now we might want to nationalize the banks, or government control and reset the "wealth" that we have accumulated in the pockets of some very few, on the backs of the works of others, whom have been exploited by a faulty system.]

Certainly, tools of individual and social destruction abound. These come-ons are available in nearly infinite ways. Some ways are obvious, some are subtle, some are internal and some are external. This most dangerous weapon we have all attempted to use -- is one weapon the ancients recognized for what it was: Usury. Future value from compound interest. It is "something for nothing," which is against God's Second Law. God's real laws. The laws that run the entire universe from the electron and Planck's constant to the speed limit of light.

We all know of weapons like items of explosive energies (dynamite to fusion weapons) to memes of mind that pretend to ethereal knowledge, and all seem to provide the "weakened" of mind with a convincing crutch against the raw press of a changing, dynamic reality.

The real "reality" is the phenomenal reality, external of human intellectual constructions. That is, reality exists without our perception of it. We do all try to perceive it, but it is difficult. For many, it is easier to believe what is told "to us" on faith alone, or by an "authority figure."
Some will tell you that the figures and percentages are "real" things. Don't be deceived.

If you utilize future value and usury, the pretension of reality can overwhelm and destroy . . . and it seems to do that as long as it is thought to have real validity.

So that means what? Well, it means even a little Usury carried too far can end in disaster.

To get you into the "Mood" to understand Usury we can "prime the pump" of your mind to consider the possible things ahead. Right now -- you have been sold on "recovery." Many of you subscribe to the concept of a "reset."

"Recovery" means to "recapture" most of the status held -- or employment of the means to recapture that status. "Reset" means a doing the same thing over again from a little bit different or shifted starting point. "Reset" is supposed to reduce expectations and thereby rebuild confidence? Who profits? What is profit?

Where does “profit” come from? Tell me something is not exploited to get a profit. And the balance sheets are where?

Think.

M. W. Hodges value for current total US debt reaches a $53 Trillion figure, with about 1/4-th of it ($12.5 Trillion) owed by "us" to foreign interests.

(Note: below are links to parts of the "Grandfather Economic Reports," by Hodges, The updates were to March of 2008 -- and as you might suspect, financial things and scams too, have progressed alarmingly since March of 2008.)

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/debt-summary-table.htm

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/nat-debt/debt-nat-a.htm#bigpicture

Hodges uses a quote of Ludwig von Mises to great effect:

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse
of a boom brought about by credit (debt) expansion.
The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner
as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit (debt) expansion,
or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved." - Ludwig von Mises (1881 - 1973)

The problem is at the base of the entire financial system -- some of which hinges on philosophies older than Hammurabi. Consider the advent of usury. Consider the future, consider the future value -- and consider to whom you would pay the interest.

A substantial Change is necessary for human survival.

Old Time Money and Old Time Religion. My opinionated view of recent history: since ~11,750 years ago. You realize this is just exploitation of population growth?

Although here is not the place to explain the coupling of agriculture, settlements, (cities = civilization) and banking scams as old as the ponzi schemes, it is worth mentioning.

As human numbers grew after the "Ice went off," and hunter gatherer modes of subsistence could not be maintained for the numbers of humans outgrowing the tribal nomadic way, that "way" had to be traded for settlements and agriculture. And "work" in place of the tribal hunting party survival contributions led to contributions to the tribe, then city in other ways. Production of food and meat from a single desirable "tract" of land led beyond territoriality to "ownership and property", and human survival was more and more based on production from specific land sites. The Middle East's Tigress-Euphrates figures strongly in the origin of city and banking. Lessons were also garnered and brought forward, and as now, forgotten. I want you to remember them -- but will help you to see these lessons.

These old peoples (ancient middle eastern "civilizations," and others ) quickly realized that "compound interest" and "future value" led to things that were "wrong" in human tribes, human groups, human societies. These peoples of old, our ancestors, had learned early about the nature of human avarice; of "greed" exponential. (Greedto the greedgreed) and even with the calmness of a reduced level of interest, cautioned of Usury -- so much so, that usury guides and prohibitions were incorporated into religions and into our evolving societies.

These realizations are much older than Christianity and Islam, and even older than Judaism -- and Abraham -- which is the root of all these recent beliefs; this flaw and most of its dangers were prohibited amongst immediate family and related elites. That is, you could not charge interest (usury) to your daughter, your son, your brother or his family. Most of the religions finally held the prohibition to include all members who believed the same way you believed. And of course, the clergy of all of them were provided money interest free as God intended. Something for Nothing.

Now, if someone from outside of your belief system came to ask for money, it was fine to collect usury -- though depending on the other's belief system, it was usually a modest amount.

The Ancients new of the financial power of exponentiation, and the chessboard with one seed of grain(rice?) on the first square of the first row, 2 grains on the second square, 4 on the third square, was an illustration to everyone of the power a contract with the devil that could subsume the entire planet. 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice?

This is[ (2)64 -1] and the total is 18.446 quintillion grains of rice. Wikipedia handles the problem nicely, at 2 mm3 for each grain -- but my cooked rice is larger than theirs and I like to eat rice. So examining the rice I eat, I estimate the volume for each grain, cooked is 4 mm3 and the volume of my cooked rice would be 73.79 cubic kilometers of rice. Wikipedia's article suggests were the grain on the chessboard to be wheat, it would take 80 times the production of all the world's arable land to provide the number of grains to meet the exponential coverage.

What is Usury? Well, what is compounded interest and future value. Something of a mixed legacy that will for survival, have to change.

Total = Principal x ( 1 + Interest Rate )years

FV = Principal x (1 + interest)years

Put a Penny in the Bank and leave it there for a while.

Principle = $0.01
Interest = 1%
4000 years on deposit.

FV = $0.01 x (1 + .01%)4000

Total FV = $0.01 x (1.01)4000

Working the above, the present value = $1,929,723,699,473,219.00

$1.929 Quadrillion dollars. The yearly interest payment on this penny investment is now over $19 trillion dollars each year. More than the "value" owed on the real estate of the United States.

$53 trillion dollars accumulated in this account 361 years ago, in mid-1646. That would have paid off the debt we have now incurred.

Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders, "no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interest, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. -- Ludwig von Mises

It is time to save the planet, and the battle will not be only an “intellectual” battle.

What is this Profit Thing? Something for nothing? No, But it is a skim. In information and energy terms this profit is an illusion, because entropy is both an information pathway and an energy truth. Entropy actually exists – and it describes the course.

If someone makes a “profit,” the books are not properly or honestly balanced. In business, the set of books is a special limited set of “transactions.” In the world of the living; of thermodynamics; of matter and energy, the books are subtle and sometimes complex , but one thing is absolutely immutable. Profit is an illusion, because there is no “something” for “nothing.” Order can be changed, however.

Note: I like some of Von Mises philosophy, but not all. I am rather interested in species survival -- and this means the financial system must be subsumed to work for the species, rather than for a few of those who would claim to own money or parts of the Earth itself. I do not favor dismantling government, I favor understanding the problems and using government to solve the problems.

Saving the Planet?

The procedure is simple enough.

Globalization?

Yes, but probably not like you are thinking. It is not a “profit-cornering” mechanism, where millions participate and only a very elite few skim the cream describing it as a “profit” from the process. It depends on what is exploited. The “free lunch” for planet Earth, life, and businesses, really is the stream of energy emanating from the sun and intercepted by Earth, transformed and “exploited” or more properly, “utilized” to sustain life by living things.

It happens a step at a time or, at most, in several broad steps, and it must be unrelated to ownership ideas such as multinational corporations, until those corporations and businesses are re-evaluated. We, as a species, may decide they shall not further be allowed to exist.

This "globalization effort" must be done on a "global scale." That is, it must be planetary and include the entire planet. The capitalistic model based on schemes skims and scams and destructive exploitation of the environment must be laid to rest. No matter your thoughts of being a "rugged individualist" if you individually affect others or the commons negatively, society will be forced to deal with you -- and will deal with you.

In fact, if we survive the warming, until we move into the asteroid belt and gas giant moons -- exploitative capitalism must be "killed." The illusions of Ayn Rand and equally of L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology must be rooted out. Equally dangerous memes that have plotted one group against another, in religion, in political identity, in race, in nation, in wealth and prosperity -- all too must be rooted out.

Sorry. It means an equality of consideration, kind of like an assumed truth in the self-evident phrase “all men are created equal. . .

Human and planetary survival are the propositions for “business survival.” All businesses and corporations continued existence hinges upon their purpose for life’s existence. A particular enterprise’s global-warming-neutrality, as well as its positive or negative character with respect to the global warming of the commons, shall be evaluated by the community and allowed or dismantled.

Businesses to be formed and corporations to be chartered, or more specifically, re-charted, and permitted to do business within or with the United States must be employed on a war-time footing for the species and planetary task of survival – and that is not the current business-friendly-model outlook. There seems to be a confusion equating what is “good for business” as being “good” for the USA, or the world. Obviously, this is not the case. The concept of corporations and their existence for social good or ill must be weighed, and their continued existence hinged upon their contributions to society as a whole. Corporate or business organisms which simply exist to turn environmental exploitations into money for a select group of shareholders at the expense of both the environment and the “commons” we all mutually own, should be ended, their assets recovered and applied to the problem.

We are our brother’s keepers. We are the species first to obtain some semblance of organized high intelligence, and have coupled it to exploitative manipulations of the Earth while short-circuiting any solid responsibility for the effects. Despite the illusion of working within a governmental democratic republic or “free” system, the society determines what it allows or supports of it members. We have to re-create, or perhaps, invent, new value structures. The entire international banking and value system needs to be changed, to be redirected, and to be orchestrated into achieving an equitable survival for our species and other species with which we share this world.

The global economy as well as the U S economy can be fixed by several fiscal engagement mechanisms including repairs of transportation-communication-power grid infrastructure in the US. Globally, the fiscal engagement involves creation and erection of these and other transportation-distribution-communications infrastructures while directly employing the “green high-tech industries.” Those nations that are ruled non-democratically cannot reach equity, and changes in their structure to preserve the commons in so far as they effect commons can and should be collectively approached from outside their borders, and changed. Yes. This may mean many options -- and when necessary, their dismantlement. The actual mechanism deployed depends on their effects upon the commons -- and their constructive interactions with the rest of us.

The point of the new infrastructure and repair or replacement of the old mechanisms is that it must be done via means that will reduce, halt, and eventually remove the industrial scale of greenhouse gas emissions.

A sea-change, one consisting of reevaluation of what is “good” for us and our environment is called for. The goals and options that deal with building and sustaining a stable, realistic, and harmonically balanced planetary ecosystem, are goals and options we must express publicly and employ rapidly.

This international banking cartel financial game is the wrong game. So how strongly are you sucked into this wrong game? And why?

I suppose most of the readers have only heard of Buckminster Fuller?

http://www.bfi.org/taxonomy/term/170/all

“Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”

That should be the Obama Game. Buckminster Fuller’s Challenge.

To whom do you and your children owe this money?

http://www.uwsa.com/us-national-debt.html

I think we are going to have to dismantle a lot of the sinful
excesses usury has built. Among the items we must dismantle are some of the greatest financial institutions -- where they have lost sight of what they should be doing, since we have permitted their existence. Some are going to have to be pinched!