Essays About Money, Taxes, and Corporations This document was most recently revised on Sunday, May 19, 2024.
| Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world. —Tyrell Wellick in Mr. Robot |
|
|
| Economists, like all pseudoscientific charlatans, know that they can hold onto their high-paying jobs only as long as they can keep the common people convinced that money matters are so mysterious that only economists can understand them. —Juan Orfo in The Way to Dawnworld, by Bill Starr |
|
| People read The Wizard of Oz, written in 1900 as a children's fantasy, but other people think it's a story about gold. A country kid from the Midwest loses her house, teams up with a farmer and an industrial worker, and battles wicked forces from the West to the East. The only way to save herself is to follow the yellow brick road, which sure looks like gold to me. And by the way, what's gold measured in? Ounces, or Oz. When she gets to Oz, what does Dorothy find behind it all? A corrupt politician behind the curtains pulling strings and controlling the little people. |
|
| ... Yes, the United States has been rigging the gold market for at least a half a century....
... it's certainly good for the
United States in the sense of maintaining the American empire because
the rigging of the gold price maintains the value of the dollar and maintains
the value of U.S. government bonds and it keeps the world using the dollar. The rigging of the currency markets has been the central objective of U.S. foreign policy for at least 50 years....
... Because the currency market
is the most powerful mechanism of imperialism. Occupying a country militarily is nothing compared to controlling its currency market. If you control a currency market, you can get everybody to work for you as your slave. |
|
| ... Of all the varied forms of crime, bank robbery is the most satisfactory to both the individual and to society. The individual of course gets a lot of money, that goes without saying, and he benefits society by putting large amounts
of cash back into circulation. The economy is stimulated, small businessmen prosper, people read about the crime with great interest, and the police have a chance to exercise their various skills. Good for all. Though I have heard foolish people complain that it hurts the bank. This is arrant nonsense. All banks are insured, so they lose nothing, while the sums involved are minuscule in the overall operation of the insuring firm, where the most that might happen is that a microscopically smaller dividend will be paid at the end of the year. Little enough price to pay for all the good caused.... —James Bolivar diGriz, in The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Harry Harrison |
|
| A bank is a den of thieves.
A credit card is an inducement to debt slavery.
A government ID number is a tool of a police state.
The entire world economy is a ponzi scheme. —Sam Aurelius Milam III
|
| Links to the Essays
^ |
| Liability Ltd.: Corpus Corporatum and Corpus Delecti
This essay was first completed on Friday, June 22, 1990.
I spent many years trying to discover a remedy for the misbehavior of corporations. One time I even invoked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission against the General Electric Company. That created a lot of job security for everybody except me. Eventually, I learned the answer to the
problem. In principle, it's very simple. In practice, it will
never happen. People are excessively greedy and insufficiently courageous.
Anyway, here it is. | ^ |
| They Can Fool
Too Many of the People Too Much of the Time
This essay was first completed on Saturday, February 16, 1991.
I intended, when I began this essay, to prove that fractional reserve banking increases the amount of cash in circulation. Early in the essay, I proved the opposite. I also discovered that fractional reserve banking doesn't really exist and would necessarily destroy itself if it did exist. Beyond that, I found the existing system to be a sinister deception. Inflation is only one of its evils. The thing I least expected to discover but which ought to have been the most obvious from the very beginning is that none of it would be possible without the willing cooperation of the people. | ^ |
| Money
This essay was first completed on Wednesday, March 13, 1991.
When I was an adolescent, my father taught me the definition of money.
During seventeen years of formal education, including a b.s. in nuclear engineering, I never encountered that information again. Now, I've discovered that Alan Greenspan agrees with me, or at least he did in the past. You can read his comments on the subject in his article Gold and Economic Freedom. |
^ |
| Shadow Taxes
This essay was first completed on Saturday, June 15, 1991.
I call it Shadow Taxation. That means that the tax doesn't stand alone and isn't even called a tax. It falls upon people as a result of something else that's enacted (so we're told) for a completely different reason. However, the prominent results are control and revenue. | ^ |
| Interest-Bearing Transactions
This essay was first completed on Wednesday, November 28, 2007.
I've long believed that interest-bearing transactions ruin an economy.
However, the economists have enshrined interest-bearing transactions as being almost sacred. People keep wondering what's wrong with the economy. Here's part of the answer. | ^ |
| The Solmon Scenario
This essay was first completed on Sunday, December 2, 2007.
Don't be surprised if you wake up one morning to discover that the value of your entire investment portfolio has fallen, overnight, to zero. | ^ |
| Quid Pro Something
This essay was first completed on Wednesday, December 5, 2007. The First Law of Economics: |
| You can't get more value out of a
transaction than you put into it. | The Second Law of Economics: |
| You can't get as much value out of a transaction as you put into it. |
| ^ |
| Gold Enough
This essay was first completed on Friday, December 14, 2007.
Most of the problems in the economy would be solved if the economy was based on a gold standard. Alan Greenspan agrees with me, or at
least he did in the past. You can read his comments on the subject in his article Gold and Economic Freedom. |
^ |
| Serial Taxation
This essay was first completed on Wednesday, January 2, 2008.
When you consider that all funds are taxed at least once per transaction, it's amazing that anybody has any funds at all. | ^ |
| Counterfeit Problem
This essay was first completed, as an essay, on Thursday, March 13, 2014.
The problem isn't the counterfeit currency. The problem is the counterfeit problem. | ^ |
| Terminal Condition
This essay was first completed, as an essay, on Saturday, November 9, 2019.
Imagine the U.S. economy as a juggling act. |
|