Also, when Wall Street says "foreign investors will be scared off for years" they really mean foreign speculators. Real investors "are concerned about economic stability" and were not scared off by capital controls.
Investment needs to be added to our Newspeak dictionary, right alongside reform, flexibility and freedom.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
"Saving" on the other hand has always been understood to mean NOT transaction activity. One keeps capital. The safekeeper or custodian may lend one's capital as is permissable by law, in so far the custodian must remit one's capital ON DEMAND. Ownership of capital is not conveyed by any, none, zero, zip, exchange.
Currency is the final vestiges of productive asset ownership in western society is property (a) quantity of currency (b) quantity of labor.
"Neo-cons" --whose business model depends on intermediary calculation of exchange value (business value)-- promulgate the superiority of unearned income by capital usury, i.e. interest payments, "opportunity risk" as compared to earned income, i.e. labor payments. Neo-cons happen to own inordinate quantites of (a) currency and (b) labor, or surplus capacities to be rented to those who own none, by virtue of monopoly protections, vested in assets (inanimate or animate property), enforced by the state.
Amazing!
Burton K. Wheeler: I saw the Depression coming. Joe Kennedy [FDR SEC chair] came to see me. He said, "I'm afraid I'm gonna wake up with nine kides and three homes and no dough." I said, "Do you want to be safe? Buy gold." He came to me again. "They've take my gold." I said, "Buy silver buillon." He came down once more. "They're taking my silver buillon." I said, "Do you want to be perfectly safe? Go get a farm, wher you can raise a cow, a pig and some chickens, and put some of those kids of yours to work. But don't get too big, because we might take it from you." He said, "Is it as bad as that?" I said, "No, but it might get that bad." He recounted his experiences as a visitor in Vienna in 1923, as the Depression there affected all classes. "I didn't think it would start as quickly as it did here in the United States." Hoover was President when they passed the Reconstruction Finance bill. I opposed it. Its purpose was to bail out the bankers, the insurance companies and the railroads. I said, "The pressure's gonna be so great that anybody who's got a sick cow is gonna come to Washington to borrow money." Bob La Follette Junior said he's voting for it, because he's afraid there would be a crash. I said, "There would be, but the sooner it comes off, the better." This RFC would only prolong it. The greater our indebtedness, the greater the crash. [Terkel, 303: 1970]
He recounted his experiences as a visitor in Vienna in 1923, as the Depression there affected all classes. "I didn't think it would start as quickly as it did here in the United States."
Hoover was President when they passed the Reconstruction Finance bill. I opposed it. Its purpose was to bail out the bankers, the insurance companies and the railroads. I said, "The pressure's gonna be so great that anybody who's got a sick cow is gonna come to Washington to borrow money." Bob La Follette Junior said he's voting for it, because he's afraid there would be a crash. I said, "There would be, but the sooner it comes off, the better." This RFC would only prolong it. The greater our indebtedness, the greater the crash. [Terkel, 303: 1970]
